Then and then

“I was nineteen and mentally/infirm when I saw the prophet Isaiah”
Solstice Litany ~ Jim Harrison

At the time I had no faith.
Neither in prophets 
nor the very veracious Cassandra
(for failing to foresee her own fatality).
I'd catch only the one 
featureless 
       futureless 
              maxim

It was spoken
broken as a record
in spin top revolutions
making me giddy, sick
fearful. For the young of fun
felt freakishly false,
mechanical as laughter
from craze-eyed mannequins.

Incarnate hades masked as theatre
halled with distortions
but He was there too
even in that ghoulish glow of limelight
the assured seer 
caparisoned in prayer shawl
luminous spheres of then
and then in each hand. 

Daunting though this: balancing
 what was with what will be
-just as the prophecy

It’s open link night over at dVerse where unprompted, anything goes