SIMOME WEIL'S WAY

You sit cross-wise in that pew
among the barefoot and the poor
recounting prayers in the fount
from exile, flights from Egypt
deportation and auto-fe.

Trying to cleanse the mind
in the inheritance of pure spirit
yet knowing the knots of history
intellect and a poet
sinks through headaches
fenced in pain.

The warmth which pulses
out of philosophy
the underground in Paris
in hiding from camps,
expatriation, searches
sounding an elocution for God
you are in the churches.

That weeping in your bones
which burn thin
as you give away honors
with ration cards
to the laborers
in a sense of tragedy
marking an Iliad thesis
your perfection to atone
caught up in your works
a holiness as you pass away
in a metamorphosis
yet virtually unknown.