After the Vision

Once I thought I saw a flame
burning on the hill.

It seemed impossible
that fire could burn like that
without consuming anything.

In the light stood a man
dressed in white.

His face carried the calm
of someone who knew
more than the rest of us.

I believed it then.

Believed he stood apart
from ordinary men,
free from the weakness
we carried in our bones.

The old story said
he offered himself once
and ended all the sacrifices.

No more lambs.
No more altars.

A single act
to close the long argument
between heaven and earth.

At the time it felt certain.

The veil torn.
The law finished.
The world suddenly explained.

But years pass.

And the hill grows quiet.

The fire I remember
may only have been
the brightness of belief itself.

Men still stand at altars.
Rituals continue.

The sky above them
remains the same
empty blue.

I do not say
the vision meant nothing.

Only that it came from somewhere
I no longer understand.

Perhaps the flame
was never in the sky.

Perhaps it burned
inside the mind
that needed it.