The pews are rows of silent witnesses,
And my mind is a storm of "not enough,"
But the font keeps talking...
isn't a shout from a mountain peak,
Or a list of the ways I’ve been weak.
It’s the breath in my lungs when I’ve lost my own,
The seat at the table where I’m fully known.
Yesterday’s debts are dissolved in the sea,
This is the mercy He’s pouring on me.
Like a wheeping willows long graceful leaves, my sorrows spill out onto the morning dews grass, the wooden kneeler bares my weight, Lord Heavenly Father hear my cries, as I slowly exhale. “Jesus I trust you”, I quietly ask fir your undying Mercy, guide me in my days ahead.
Little flames
surrounded by brick
Christ on the cross
Silent Angels
waiting for the service
to begin
Wood, incense, dusty books,
filled with
ancient hymns
Kneeler creak, glass doors
sometimes ...
God arrives too late !
Whispers from heaven
open arms
sometimes he catches you
as you sit filled with despair
free falling,
GRACE!
.
Footsteps echo in the hollow hallway
around the old cavernous cathedral
making the silence much too deafening.
The tall candle's faintly flickering flame
proves too confined, too feeble to brighten
the indigo darkness all around it.
Tonight, the hard, wooden kneeler torments
my knees, but strangely somehow dignifies,
reassures the core of the core of me.
.
High Noon in Downtown Chicago
St. Peter's in the Loop
Two minutes more, Father Cal,
and you will hear another
of my strange confessions.
Right now, I'm outside
watching the rain on my glasses
running in rills.
Once inside I'll confess
the usual stuff
with a few variations,
none essential,
all accidental,
the same plot,
the same ploys,
the same frenetic tale
I have always to tell.
Next week, I promise,
it will be different.
Next week, I promise
I'll fall on the kneeler
and whisper
through the grille,
"Father Cal, it is I.
You know the rest."
Next week, I won't make
another list in the diner
across from St. Peter's.
Next week I'll swig
on a milkshake instead.
Father Cal, you and I
will both profit.
Donal Mahoney
The candle's faintly flickering flame
is somehow dim enough to darken
the indigo darkness around it ... even more.
Echoes of footsteps quiver in the hollow
hallway around the cavernous cathedral,
making the silence deafening ... even more.
Tonight the wooden kneeler, unforgiving,
torments my knees, but strangely dignifies
the core of me, reassuring me ... even more!
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