Come Union : Part One - The Architecture of the Temple
Dedicated to Larry Frank: my friend, mentor, and overall wise guy (This version without original formatting)
I. The Architecture of the Temple
This body is a temple.
Even more than that,
It is the prototype and unrivaled pinnacle
Of all architectural feats.
Inside of it
Is an entire ecosystem,
A bustling metropolis of cells
Pulsing and racing and working
For the good of the whole.
I recall a time
In some distant past
When there were no “bodies” anywhere,
Only microorganisms
Swimming around from here to there
( Probably not so different from you and I. )
Eventually, they got organized:
First into plants —
Feeding on the rain, the soil, and the light of the sun;
And into animals —
Feeding on the plants and on one another;
Then finally into us.
( And yet, from where I stand now,
All of that seems almost like a dream
And a fantastically elaborate but incidental backstory,
When in reality, this moment that I occupy is merely a blink of time
In comparison with what life has gone through to get here… )
Yes, to be anything at all
Is an immense work of organic engineering—
A work so concise, harmonious, and elegant
That it also stands as the masterwork
Of all artistic creations.
Something disturbs me, though,
As I look closer at this temple:
Where did the building blocks for such a structure
Come from anyway?
Haven’t they always come
From the bodies of life itself,
From consuming other masterworks of God?
—Simpler works maybe, but no less inspiring
In their uncanny inventiveness.
Yes, their becoming was cut short
And their structures were broken up
To construct this creation.
And nothing that grows
Has ever grown any other way.
I touch my mouth:
These jaws are the jaws of hell
To everything that is swallowed in death—
For this temple to remain standing,
A sacrifice must continually be made
Or destruction soon comes for me instead
When, “he not busy being born is busy dying.”
So this— this is the price
Of my continual becoming and growing.
How terribly beautiful and painful:
Life building upon itself with itself,
Governing and unifying itself
Into ever renewed creations through the endless procession
Of decomposition and recomposition.
Unity and sacrifice—
These two themes appear inseparable,
And here— here I see the heart of Christ
Embedded and at work in life
Wherever it grows.