Have you been to a sanctuary
with no walls or doors?
The one that arises when
people dance with the moon,
gaze into the eye of a beetle,
or march and sing in protest?
Have you been tending its door?
Keeping the candle lit?
Calling other mystics?

Have you a minion, coven,
holy ones that claim you
when prayer feels restless
old forms whither, busyness
disarms grace, and leaders
agitate for the next holy trouble?
Though you train everyday
to enter and bow at the feet
of your Unsolvable Life,
you may walk alone,
heavy from trekking
up and down mountains
of practice, performing ritual
meals with friend and foe
to calm anxieties born of
insatiable dreaming to find
loves solace on every breath.

Leaning into Ancient Wells,
Rocks, Pines, Shores,
toward whispers of old times
when eyes met, moist cheeks
were kissed, wild souls were God’s
and prayer was daily work,
you hunch that the old houses
were built by inclined ears,
the flute players breath,
the lull of ecstatic speech,
decaying forest elders,
white light at a baby’s crown,
tears falling in a common bowl
and the heaving breasts of dancers
whose every move is soul speech.
Or was it always hard to find
the place where two or three gather?

O Sanctuary! Secret of the Golden Ratio,
Love Ladder, Fibonacci Code, lost chord
that makes the common prayer strong
monastery@thecorner
of WE and EveryWhere,
whose laughter explodes
with tangos of Adoration that show
initiates how to see as angels see–
upside down and sideways.
Where lovers can be depressed,
struggling so to mount the stars
and often get arrested before
they’re known for charming snakes,
fire tending, water bearing,
enshrining, conjuring rituals,
prayer arrows, tinctures,
incantations– whatever it takes
to light the Divine Way to play.

If together we make sanctuary
aren’t our intentions the buttresses?
Each biological blueprint–the plan?
Our hearts­– the web masters
linking up to reenlist the medicinal arts
with a single touch, creating spaces
to dance, sing, eat, draw, tell stories
straight from the ER of soul,
recite poems not shared at the office,
reveal dreams too big for one body,
and to dwell in and savor
the love lucky holy of holies!

I believe in hidden monasteries
set aglow by a thousand suns
built up body to body by the
steady rise of children singing,
beauty spells cast by dance, drum,
wind, string, horn, color, shadow
and chorus upon chorus all conveying
what to do when violence looms
and night waves run deep.

The Mystery of the Body says–
Build relationship, the true stronghold.
Dance there. Sing there. Eat there.
Be perfect as weeds, low to the ground,
delightful, hearty, infectious.
Root yourself in my feral Love Life.
Bloom and die with devotion every Day
For where I am so are you.

Hidden, Announced, Beloved.
Real.

See more at cynthiawinton-henry.com