“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani”

I
walked
Down the rain-blackened asphalt of Monte Cassino,
In the ashen grayness of dawn
Watching black bellies of pregnant clouds
Give birth to the Sunday storm.

And knelt
on the damp cool earth
floor of the coarse granite grotto
and prayed

to the stone idol of the Virgin,
the God of my fathers,
the Lord of the Rock,

Prayed that I was not alone…

But stone is deaf,
and statues mute.

So I stretched out
to kiss the earth,
my pagan Mother of old,

but the soil
remained soil
on my lips,

as the voiceless thunder shook my bones,
and the rain fell,
fell down,
down upon damp dirt
and maple leaves
cold statues
and dead weeds.

So
I rose.

Empty idols of statue and storm
Silent beneath the rain.

And walked
Through gray dawn
Alone.