The heavy oak doors swing
slow and ponderous beneath my push;
snow swirls with me into the hush,
into this sacred
place of waiting,
this place of ancient Advents.
Above my pew warm candles flicker
in sconces of brass, glowing gold
on cold marble
columns,
lessening the chill
in the vast echoing arch
of this consecrated space.
Diffuse, misty
light of pink and grey,
shifting like sea skies at dawn,
fills the great soaring chamber
and I remember now, me down below,
so small that I
stood
on the cracked leather kneeler.
High in the transept sunlight pours
through stained glass saints making holy fire,
jeweled colors spill like muted rainbows
into the great vault above,
where the pine scent wafts
from green boughs below.
On the deep amber
woodgrain
of the pew I once clung
to,
is a polished
brass clamp
for a gentlemen’s
hat, gleaming
on the sheen of
this wood
with its surface like
silk,
polished from
years of sliding
Sunday-best garments.
The fragrance of
memory surrounds me now,
the old hymnal’s
fragile pages,
the warm melting
beeswax,
a ghostly trace of
my mother’s perfume,
and the faint
sweet scent of ancient incense
long ago risen to
heaven,
with my little
girl prayers.
Tara Flaherty Guy is a recovering career zoning enforcement official, recently retired. She has a BA in Creative Writing from Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota and currently works as a contributing writer at St. Paul Publishing Company. Her work has been published in Ariel Chart, Yellow Arrow Journal, Talking Stick Literary Journal, and Adelaide Literary Magazine. Her newest work is forthcoming in the Death Throes Magazine and the St. Paul Almanac. Guy lives in Minnesota with her husband and three patronizing cats.
Beautiful, picturesque, and respectful. I loved this.
ReplyDelete