Sheltered under beckoning spires
Prismatic windows spin fire
Onto cold stone
Taking a pew, he sits alone.
Votives burn and flicker
Incense ghosts’ bicker
A monstrance gleams
Nothing is what it seems.
Sacerdotalism misplaced
Prayers gone to waste
Hearing sermons unwritten
Gospel footfalls unbidden.
Indelible markings,
Infinity’s shores harkening,
Gathered not in twos and threes
Wondering what’s become of Thee.
The altar of his youth
Wrested away by proof
Of old sins and new
Innocence plundered through.
Vestments decay
Old shibboleths fray
Left to their own devices
Consumed by certainty’s vices.
Despoiling mystery
Staining history
Millstones heaved
Children bereaved.
By city and town
Burn it all down
Bare ruined choirs
Ecclesiastics smug into Hell’s fires.
Still The Book clarion recalls
Eden’s promise before The Fall
Before serpents and flaming Cherubim
Took it away from us and them.
Lillies that need not spin
Clothed in glory greater than Solomon!
Meekness greater than might
Love that will set things right!
An Empty tomb
For all issue of the womb
Death without sting
Glad tidings to bring.
A hope so bold
No greater story ever told.
Shock of Easter morn
Redeeming all yet to be born.
A Promise never taken away
No matter the false prophet’s sway
Logos eluding dogma, canonical art
Found only in human hearts.
This place no longer has hold
For him beyond the fold
Freed from rubric and scold,
Listening as bells ring
His soul begins to sing.
