Shrine
The deeper in our cave we go, the more
the nature of a shrine comes clear. A house
on stilts, a cabin on a Blue Ridge slope,
a lodge in view of Everest, the same.
A wikiup, a yurt, a sidewalk tent,
the same. A white house, red house, blue house: shrines,
cenotaphs, and sometime mausoleums.
Some people think of them as coliseums
where rivalries play out, bright armor shines
and clashes until every strength is spent.
Some people light a candle, watch the flame,
see promise in it or, at least, a hope
for friend or sibling, parent, child, or spouse.
I feed the fire to hear the heartwood roar.
Dan Campion’s poems have appeared previously in Amethyst Review. He is the author of A Playbill for Sunset (Ice Cube Press, 2022), The Mirror Test (MadHat Press, 2024), and the monograph Peter De Vries and Surrealism (Bucknell University Press, 1995). He is a coeditor of the anthology Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song (Holy Cow! Press, 1981; 2nd ed. 1998; 3rd ed. 2019). His poetry has appeared in Able Muse, Light, Measure, Poetry, Rolling Stone, Shenandoah, THINK, and many other journals.
Amethyst Review 