Meditations Upon Religious Statues

MEDITATIONS UPON RELIGIOUS STATUES

Please wait briefly while audio loads.

These saints, standing in cold silence
with frozen hair
and fixed eyes,
weep within their stone bodies
that we have made them thus...
for their hearts are far away:
cart wheeling down green hills;
swimming naked with cherub children
in silver streams;
climbing huge, shimmering trees
with six-winged seraphim;
throwing their arms open
to the wild winds of God;
laughing at the beauty of stars;
and praying for us in heaven's ecstasies
that we would wake up!
raise our voices against injustice in the world,
learn to cherish what is mortal,
and come to them at last —
through love's fullest surrender —
ready to preserve at all costs
heaven's freedom!