The Autopsy

A Contemplative Poem

Source: Pixabay

The seminal tragedy of worldly inheritance is the self-restricted hypoxia of love

To feel deservedly unloved by God — to know it is just

Turn from this precious crimson cord of divine charity, wrap it about your very self and render breath impeded

Without such supply, ontological identity perforates and, with it, the dignity of the created order

The degradation of youth pounces — the rejection of preciousness in embrace of the profane

What a tragic loss, when all else serves thee not

In dishonor and spiritual dislocation, the body, unveiled, is harvested for pleasures abounding and depraved

Eros manifesting as a simulacrum of love

Animal appetite sated upon inert flesh

And yet the cord remains and is right with God

Religious restoration is to confront the entanglement and its deprivation

To disencumber oneself from the tie that binds and receive love, just as the physician refeeds a man thus starved

To face intrinsic identity, dignity, and the denial thereof

And to carry oneself as someone whole, though once broken — dishonored, yet redeemed

And to love another as yourself because they are yourself — degraded and built anew in singular holy visage.