Memory Keeping Priests

our feet lapped with midnight tide
fieldgrass stamens and pistils
the priests of this telescope temple
nightly thanking heaven
they were not born with our bloodied vessels
so poor and forgetful
we who trade for nothing,
for sleep,
a dozen shocks of raining light,
falling memory
last recipients of lightyears-lasting
prophecies without eyes to fit the lens
they keep the field
with wonder holy
never rising, kneeling,  praying, pressing
to the curtain the stalk of their bodies
likely and possible
they keep the censer burning, swinging
in case we remember
to come to the temple.

aug 17, 12