Submerged Cathedral

Sickle moon gray above the waves The quiet directionless wind On the earth, and in the sky above A veil is drawn, cutting into dark spots Slowly round and round, Murals are etched into the sand The statue waits with eyes unblinking Silent wonder, solitary armless stone Twisted, counter-pose, forever fixed, Wonder, what does she see under water? Rusty bows and sterns, shipwrecks, Silvery fish fluttering in and out of hulls, a graveyard outside hallowed ground Archway, the great doors dark and closed Murky, wet light pours in vaulted windows Through water-worn edges of stained glass Seaweed tendrils curl around an altar Once, quiet processions marched up the aisle They are now only filtered ghosts, Murmuring, wavy impressions of what was Forever, the tide calls upon the great steeple And the lonely under-toe, Pulls a mote in the sand around her, To protect the bastion in the sea, Dark, lovely, lost forever to those above