Reclaimed Poem by Elizabeth Shield

Old idols of silver and gold
called me back to past practices
bid me bend my knees and bow my head
and worship at their tarnished altar
black with blood and dark with rust
the dust of human souls covered the floor.

Offerings of thousands, heedless, in pursuit
of what metal manmade gods could never give.
Why did I too feel their pull, and draw near?
I looked them in the eyes and saw them leer
but no more did I feel fear than rapture
- as I had often before.
I left them in their stead and passed on
from that place; stained dark with regret
and desires of impure nature.

I quit the temple, left the lies,
and shook off the plaguing shadows
of their dominion, all that harried
and harangued. All that lead to death
I banished far away, climbed out of
that cavernous maw of darkness and
shook off its cloying scent.

Glorious, then, I beheld the dawn,
and by its light a narrow road,
small and straight, my future waits
along its winding way, beyond
the glad horizon; to the mountains
or down to the sea, I know not where
I travel, but, I know it is the only path
to victory.