A Hollow Reflection Poem by Helen Gaudin

Saints and Icons carry memory of worship
Stars of yesterday's grace
Given life through prayers and soft murmurs of wishes
Steadfast they reside in hallowed spaces
A promise of piety given place in heaven
Sanctified and held up to inspire and to youth aspire
Removed from the messy reality of the world
Life that was not as now told, gone in the blink of an eye
Only a hollow reflection of humanity remains.

Stars and Heroes created through the media
To generate adulation and worship
Given status to divert and distract and youth to aspire
Held up to high standards only to be pulled down
By the power that created, thus destroyed
A reminder that there is no sanctity in glorified heights
And heaven no longer awaits
Rewards are only monetary and public attention is fickle.

Saints and Icons, Stars and Heroes litter the archives
The required anguish of blood, sweat and tears
Forgotten in the captured moment of glory
A history momentarily remembered
As they show their Stigmata's, their wreaths and medals
All that remains of the promise is a hollow reflection
Generated through the imagination of the final observer.