The Inner Sanctuary Poem by Jan H Mysjkin

The slightest difference to the naked eye initiates me into things that I otherwise would never have seen.
Jesus is seated under bare, white vaults. She is wearing a Greek helmet and assumes the attitude of a discus thrower. On a low table in front of her burns the sacred fire, consisting of a cone of kindlings in a large copper dish. She is praying, with a book in her left hand and a rosary around her right wrist. This mystical figure is not Jesus - it is Zoroaster.
Who stands there rather like a copyist who now loathes humanity because of competition from the Xerox. Her head droops between her wings as between the shoulders of a hunchback; her skull and scraggy neck are those of a vulture. Thick-set and firm-footed, she holds a metal rod with which she pokes the sacred fire in a brazier the height of a man. This mystical figure is not Zoroaster - it is a tiny old man.
With golden spectacles, posing as an artist in a boater's singlet that totally resembles the outfit of a queen of the kitchen. In her hand she holds upright the crook of the good shepherd, her face lit up by the gleaming of the sacred fire. Not a single button of her gaiters is missing.
On leaving, I note that nothing is comparable with blindness. I have forgotten all of them, and that settles the matter.

Translation: 2011, John Irons