Seated at the back of this cathedral, where
The comers-late and comers-rare together
Waited for the final bell, chime of release,
I kindled with a blazing understanding.
-
I came here to confess my sins
When I was young, and little faults
Took grotesque shadow-shapes upon the wall
Of alabaster conscience, cast there by
The still unsullied light of innocence.
I waited for my Father in a pew,
And looked behind me often at the
Brazen, mammoth exaltation of
Great organ pipes above a gothic door.
They looked like some celestial city
Half-descending down to join the rites
Of worshippers to its own intonations -
Paleolithic whale-songs offered to
An unseen presence, closeted in gold.
-
Now, aged and clouded as I am, I feel
A burning, splendid, newfound clarity
Of how and why you fill me,
You, whose face I have not seen
In years, not since we parted ways
At close of academic year and
Launching mortarboards:
You echo in my soul’s soft caverns and
Within my marrow-tunneled bones just as
The breath of benthic bellows strums
Metallic throats into an iron tune.
You make my senses and my rounded
Solitude reverberate with
Rising, coruscating, full-bright
Hymns.