Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
A poem
It is not the turn of hand or finger stabbing air,
the flash of eye or cast of head upturned,
the long procession of preacher and those who heard
– bringers of light and harbingers of dark.
No, none of these can touch the ground
where, engraved in stone, an elegant labyrinth,
leads many feet to sacred emptiness.
No, it is the morning and its freshness and through
the blue glass of fabric and red of earth
and passionate green, there is a light poured out,
as though angels were pouring jewelled water
from clouds of heaven to arid earth.
It is the light
cascading through and down. It drenches the earth,
reveals a sacredness that begs of us,
as did the tree of old, to take off our shoes.
It is not the transient shapes held back in lead
that urge our feet, but the burning of the light
that touches flesh and turns us into flame.
