Blessed Marilyn
We have enshrined you as a godhead divine
What you gave us
in your time on Earth
you offer us still
But with a new lens
A new language
from the other side of the mirror.
Let us lay our best selves at your altar
Let us not use you to desecrate beauty
by comparing another’s
or our own
to yours
Let us not stain your innocence
by celebrating your flaws
Or use you to defend and relieve our base desires.
You deliver your radiance
still so present with us
As a light through which we can identify
and correct
Those impulses that destroyed you
Because when we dare to look in that mirror
we see those impulses in ourselves as well.
As we gaze at you in awe and admiration
May we behold one another
With the same rapturous regard
May we glide through each room of our day
With your effervescence and grace
Until our shadows dissolve.
May we speak
With full voice
Because you were silenced
May we live
With whole heart
Because yours was broken
Help us to receive your eternally exquisite qualities
into ourselves
So that we may reflect them into this temporal world
That hungers for a taste of the sublime.
As we encounter your abiding presence
In this realm
May we also know
That our love of you
Can lead us to encounter what is divine
Within ourselves.
Exquisite