Remember to Remove Your High Places

If your mother is a priest's daughter, she will lead you well.
But remember to remove your high places.
Remember the distinction in the ooze, and glow, and burn of Fire itself.
Fasten the stones of your brothers to your shoulder blades,
- A bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate -
And choose to lay down traces of idolatry in graves.

Do you see, you are the prey of old questions,
Though you deem yourself a different kind of breed.
Are you brave enough to be a child, green?
Clear your dazzled eyes and smooth your pride down,
Smile to show where teeth have not grown in.

Live for when the tocsin and the knell toll death of self,
And where the vines entwine around the tree.
I will move, by grace, from where my fingers linger
To where my ribs cave in, and then bleed free.