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. 

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