2009
They say in a cathedral everything transforms:
God to ghost, pain to prayer, the wounds divine.
Even the gargoyles scrub watermarks in their spare time.
Two atheists walk into a cathedral,
and what? Knocked around
by enough rose windows and psalms
any cast bell can get giddy,
and sure I’m vaulting today but not where they tell me to go.
It’s the hushed voices—praise but also who’s hungry, who’s bored—
I want to listen to, amplified by limestone so even the quietest get heard.
I want to remember these faces lifted to admire the moon rock in the window:
glass-dappled, blue and red beneath the hoops and small stars,
the light of this world pouring through.
