The Sacraments

Baptism

Let the waters pool in the river in preparation for the ritual purification.
Transcending the acts of transgressive pasts, lasting long enough
to wash away all sorrows if you let it penetrate the waxy scale
we shield ourselves with, the lies of self-preservation, for we are not
alone in this world. Bare skin purged of sweat of fear and folly,
prepared for the entry of an Holy Spirit, incarnated as a lover,
who hovers over the water, drawing up the resinous ruins
and purifying it in a reign and rain of redemption, the purification
of what we were that we may live again, twice born.


Confession

Forgive me, for I have sinned.
I have lain with false idols, not knowing you were out there,
calling my name in subtle somnolences. The pretense bared
only when you spoke my name, that once, naked and open,
calling me down from the heavens to lay with you, flames
licking and burning away all doubts in a moment, no apologies
for the fiery furnace unleashed to consume the past, the present,
and to leave a field of cleansed ashes for a future altar.
I confess my transgressions and ask your forgiveness,
bless me with your kisses and touch, prepare me for Heaven.
I would be made worthy of your divine presence in my soul.


Communion and Absolution

I will take the flesh and the wine, divine, into me and make it a part of me.
Transubstantiating your essence in heated flesh and the blood of your desire
into a purifying agent to make me yours, to prove and purpose my redemption.

Your blood, mingled with sweat and the essence of your fragrant regions,
a taste like jasmine and the iron of my conviction to your divinity. I accept
the absolution of your surrender to my thirst and hunger. My passion.

And I, to you. Take my flesh into you and draw out the warm wine,
the leper's blood of my surrender to your tender and urgent needs, seed
given as feast, released, and we have taken two separate souls and merged.

Drink deeply, consume completely, leave nothing of this vessel,
for it is nothing without you to draw it in, sharing again your flesh and blood
as you swallow me, hollow me, and refill me with your transcendent spark.


Confirmation

the words you heard at the peak of my ecstasy hold true in the shallow shadows
of a room where there is no artificial heat or need to play pretense.
I would love you even had I not just melted into you, leaving part of me forever,
and I will still worship at this altar is the veil falls and I am cast out and away.
this was not a little boy playing at manhood. this was a lover, unlike any other
you have probably encountered. ministering his faith into you, and drawing hope
that you will confirm that this was more than another sawdust trail conversion.
do you reject the madness of this graceless age, where our Gods are all artificial?
will the laying on of our hands and lips kiss away all issues and doubts,
the stigma and stigmata of our self-imposed exile from the mediocrity?
speak me words of your heart, true , mine are constant and are of love for you.


Matrimony

The apple harvest.
The earnest offer made.
Your answer holds my soul


Last Rites

I am sworn unto death to love you. And beyond if permitted.
I will not love you as long as you live, but as I do, assured.
So here we are at last. Mortals. Lovers. Friends. The vows avowed said
to trust without doubt or fail, love for as long as time is measured.
I would feel your hands on my face one last time, breath on my skin, warm.
It matters not who passes first, but that we find ourselves again
within arm's reach of one another, I will miss your gentle form,
curled into me and sleeping like an ardent angel, far from sin
and far from those who would pluck her wings in envy and I will dance
alone with my memories of you. Frail essence of dreams, next to
the truth that I had not loved like this before we kissed at distance.
You are as beautiful as Summer, as perfect as Spring, and you
will always be my Sunday Girl, no matter the day or season.
I found love to measure God against. Apocalyptic passion.


Ordination

Ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus, usque ad consummationem sæculi.
An evangelist from a ronin, made by your love and his faith in it.
Dreams subject to the wind, but strong enough to tack and track the future.

I accept the commission, whether it be to your bedchambers or the night.
The cold stones are small comfort compared to your tender kisses, my love,
but I am given to this ordination, this extraordinary moment of grace.

I will feel the cold winds and the sharp stones that will be my bed while I await
your signal at the window that I may re-enter the city and claim my place,
beside you, before you, the more you dare, the more I care.

We will conquer all that before was too much for one alone to overcome.
We will conquer all that before was too much for one alone to understand.
We will conquer all that before was too much, but never again, my love.

This is a defining time, a sibboleth for the true romantics, awakening
slowly. One by one they come, then two by two as they are reacquainted
and the night fills with dancers and lovers and the voices of poets.

The sacraments have been taken, the vows made unbreakable if we will them
to be more than just words. Poets. Amomancers. Dreamers and weavers
of life and of the purity and surety of the passion you have returned to the world.

Ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus, usque ad consummationem sæculi.
This is our world, our world to explore and lay together and speak of what we have found,
sounding out the worlds of corners of life where no old worlds existed.

I am your priest, your preacher, your acolyte, your pope raised from an heretic
who had lost his way and will and had forgotten love, as he had been forgotten.
And then you came to me and made gentle words into amomancies to heal me.

I am stronger now. Still feeling and reeling from the scars of the unrepentant
who do not understand the nature of this brandywine, this heady intoxication
drawn in sweat and sweeter rain from the tempest of your body, into me.

We are lovers. And we shall reach for the heavens with renewed hope and faith.
We are lovers. And we shall teach all that heaven flows with renewed faith and hope.
We are lovers. And we shall teach all that heaven is now resident on this earth.

Kiss me and be slow and meticulous in your touch, awaken me at any hour
to call me to you, to demand I execute the sacraments again to prove my love.
I will not turn away from this joyous duty, I am purposed to your happiness.

I have been shaped to fit the curve of your body, the bend of your soul
and the darkness within you is of relevance to me, for I do not leave poison
in the wounds that they may not heal sufficiently, I will take it into me.

Ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus, usque ad consummationem sæculi.
I am a patient evangelist in your name. Bless me and empower me again.
And again. And again. I will share my sacraments and thank God for your existence.



William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Please forgive any line wraps you suffer, I am who I am and I write how I write. Note the presence of a sonnet, an haiku and a triskadekian canto. All glory to the Sunday Girl, this is a Hail Mary sort of event and it took a lot out of me.