Back to the Unknown God

Watch for the unguarded idol,
The battered ruin no one
Bothers to try to keep from you.

If you yearn to worship something
As human as a deity
Why fall for some grand abstraction,

Or a storybook champion?
Why wait at the end of the line
For someone to pray over you,

Assure you you’re forgiven, loved?
Seek out your own abandoned god,
No less an invention than

Any of them, but broken now,
Broken down, an overgrown stone,
Ideally not even a name.

Don’t research it. Don’t ask around.
Be glad you stumbled on it. Kneel,
If your knees allow it. Whisper

Your most selfish cravings to it.
Come to know yourself as you do.
Your god. And this is important—

Don’t you dare proselytize it.
Write no revelations in books.
Walk away after one long look.