The cathedral is full of gold,
Murmurs rise to the wood of God's brow,
Nun's mops keep the monstrance scents down
As purple is drawn to mourn the new flowers.
The communion wafers are dry as a bone
And the wine as dark and as bitter as the moon.
The few who kneel there read a common prayer.
The organ pipes are pregnant with silence.
The saints who make their appearance
Through glass seem tremulous, mere echo
To what seems like answers
To what seems like prayers.
A dog barks in the distance of the town.
A cloud turns the Virgin's eyes down.
This is known. It takes no great heroism
To be a slave, to be taken, by Mary, by God
As if the warm sun swirls are the same
As what you were taught:
The sun as a finite ball of gas,
The Son irrecoverably passed.
It plays with the veil of your night mind, bruised
By the morning light proving you wrong once again...
But there will be fresh debates, new acolytes to contend with
To make what you think what you see,
And say believe in your own eyes,
In the visible, before the terrible
Spectre of what you don't know.
There is no advantage -- none at all -- in being right.
