I Looked

I looked tonight and I saw. I see things all the time, but tonight even this one--perhaps reflecting off of a particularly empty or questioning me--emerged as more self-reflective than usual.
Before I knew, dancing between images of spent skeletons and hallucinatory loves, I found there was something speaking about my struggles with religion, mortal fear, and reality as something *far* greater than a conglomeration of molecules and a system of transferring energy. Life, any given moment, is something even more than spiritual. Whatever that is, its frighteningly sacred, legendary, baffling... and powerful.

The poem is entitled "shield."
Here is an excerpt:

the shield of those who've passed
I am wired with so many honest conflicts that each
dime and paradigm shift leaves me too scared of betraying
the truth that was or the truth that will be true
both are so certain of themselves
I am absolutely certain of myself--there you are again,
when my nails were in the old bark, that
time at uncle james', I was certain that big, huffing thing
would get me
I didn't know they could smell things out, but I knew
I felt and swore which are the same
that they could crack delusion
oh, i have never been so scared in all existence
now, not afraid of death i still overturn at the
recollection of the collection of the accounts of birth
which is the great process of all, and all that there is
and all that is being answered to.