The Veil Poem by Mark Sauer

Iconodule, relisher of relics,
I reverence the forms that let me touch
The formless, smell and taste the past, that depict
Things unseen; I mourn their loss as much
As what they evoked. Golgotha is razed,
The grail is gone, and I am diminished.
Yet it is mercy, for which God be praised,
Veronica's frail napkin has vanished
From men's eyes. The Gorgon's gaze merely turned
Men's flesh to stone, not their souls. That image
Pressed by blood, pus and sweat; eyes met and spurned
In perfect love; turn from us that visage!
Thorn, splinter, nail are vicarious grace;
But let us forget we battered God's face.