Summer Solstice

Summer Solstice

(“The cherubim had their wings spread upward, covering the Mercy Seat with their wings and facing each other. The faces of the cherubim were turned toward the Mercy Seat.” Exodus 37:9)

The room was dark, but their eyes were bright
like cats caught in the middle of the night by a beam of moonlight.
Imprinted, their space was inhabited by curiosity and
mercy; their timing was perfect, their projections
silently filled the place with awe and dread.
It took time to become used to the shadows cast
upon the curtains hanging like fluid waterfalls.

I had fallen asleep and assumed it was a dream.
I saw my younger son as a child pretending to ride
our Australian Shepherd like a cowboy.
He liked to journey across the earth, ticking the
boxes
of every planet he visited. He logged his progress,
and I leapt conclusions. He always preferred to
visit somewhere new until his card was completed,
until enough time passed to make its memory dim.

What would I see within the tabernacle,
what would I write after seeing angels in stone?
What answer could I give to the silent room where
no one could visit, except for high priests and novices
in dreams? In my enlightened imagination sunrise and
sunset inhabited the same moment and place. I could
breathe without pain;
I could speak without forgetting the refrain that echoed
relief from the unanswerable contemplations I had piled
in the corners of my mind.

The cherubim, heavy with the weight of glory,
unshadowed the primordial imprint that stained
my preconceptions.

It was a chilly and cloudy summer solstice with the
rain occasionally painting the hills. I remembered what
it was like to dwell with the ancient wings buffering
my descent and holding me mercifully from the moment
I stumbled on the steps to the temple. I was frozen
in fear
until the images of forgiveness played like light
from the sun a minute before it goes down.