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Poem: Temenos | Poem

 
 
 
TEMENOS
 

Scattered rough stones, perhaps a few lumber scraps,

Miscellany of runes not chosen: What you see

Is not where I have gone, but the bits and leftovers

Of the wall that surrounds the sacred enclosure, of the wall

Whose job it is to keep the world's winds, transient

As tumultuous, ephemeral though so devastatingly, so

Distractingly effective in their moment, from stirring up

A blinding murk of silt and event in the pool the rough

Walls of the Temenos: the sacred enclosure, surround.

The scraggly walls you see are not the purpose. Their

Function is to create a place within which the waters may

Still that, stilling alike, I might see a bit of what swims

In the depths. What you see is where I have left from and

The leftovers of how...and, with luck, effect, if there is any,

Of what I might bring back. But from within, the purpose is

Not the enclosure, nor even the products of going within, for all

I feel grateful if any such products help the process feel justified.

Within, the purpose is to have a place to still, to

See, to learn, to center at depth. With or without product

To justify, Temenos is a place within which it becomes possible

To gaze into the still pool that nourishes my soul.

That's where I have gone...and why I go into the

Hidden place whose leftover construction scraps lie about, odd,

Disconnected to see from outside, where you cannot enter as

My Temenos contains the pool that, if still, may nourish

Only my soul...though, of course, you can always find

The place and materials, perhaps already have, equally specific, with

Exterior equally rough, or smooth, or utterly hidden, to build your own Temenos: 
Sacred enclosure within which is still.
 

- Uncle River

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