After the fire,
an act of devotion.
Thousands of women cut
their hair for the thigh-thick braids
of hair ropes that lifted
the heavy spruce beams
taken from medieval loam.
Ordinary ropes would not have been able
to lift and have these beams loom over
worshippers in the Grand Amida Hall
after the rebuilding
of the Eastern Temple.

Of high gloss–
ebony but gold, more–
the hair ropes lifted the burden
of the women's attachment.
As I looked into the glass
display case of their sacrifice,
I touched my own hair
and thought of hair
that lifted the beams
up toward the open rafters,
up toward the stars
and up toward the moon.
Upward and outward
toward nothing
and the uncreated.