Encaustic sacrifices

Talking about the tools,
but not teaching how to use them.
Showing the treasures,
but not knowing how to spend them.

This is the road of religious orthodoxy,
that makes orderlies
more important than the doctor,
that postpones surgeries
except those merely cosmetic,
that abandons therapy
as unsuited to our mortality.

Stories, stories, and more stories.
Entertainment, naturally religious
drama, replaces true miracle,
while what passes for miraculous
is confined to what drips
from painted planks and holy bones.

Meanwhile, the living body
putrefies for lack of healing,
starves for dearth of real food,
dies of thirst before bucketless wells.

This is how faith is handed over?
The living faith of the dead
transformed by verbal acrobatics
into the dead faith of the living?

Tight-rope walking and levitation,
sleight of hand impossible to detect,
harmonized palms all around
paralyzed in monolithic salute,
statuary in stone rejected,
yet idols of fleshly fantasy erected.

Who would want to weep
over this pile of stones?
Who would want to rule
over this heap of ruins?

Destitute of all good,
clad darkly yet prey to desire,
marauders indulge themselves in holy rapine,
pectoral jewels gleaming
in the glory of clerical smiles.

Even goat's hair once was accepted in sacrifice,
but now, only holocausts of souls.
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