Reeking of Heaven

"There in Rangoon I realized that the gods
were enemies, just like God,
of the poor human being.
Gods  in alabaster extended
like white whales,
gods gilded like spikes,
serpent gods entwining
the crime of being born,
naked and elegant buddhas
smiling at the cocktail party
of empty eternity
like Christ on his horrible cross,
all of them capable of anything,
of imposing on us their heaven,
all with torture or pistol
to purchase piety or burn our blood,
fierce gods made by men
to conceal their cowardice,
and there it was all like that,
the whole earth reeking of heaven,
and heavenly merchandise."

Pablo Neruda, Memorial of Isla Negra
"Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet-diplomat and politician Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (1904 – 1973). He derived his pen name from the Czech poet Jan Neruda. Pablo Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

Neruda became known as a poet when he was 10 years old. He wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems such as the ones in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924). He often wrote in green ink, which was his personal symbol for desire and hope."
~ Wikipedia

Photos ~ Yangon (Rangoon), Bagan, an ancient city on the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar (Burma), was once home to over 13,000 brick temples built between the 9th and 13th centuries. Over the centuries, most of the temples have been destroyed by earthquakes, man, or time. However, about 2,300 temples spread over 40 square miles remain in the Bagan Archaeological Zone around the old city of Bagan.