in hope of reprieve,
force a merely sad
& awkward solitude,

degrade witness to history,
expose the soul’s shrinking
worlds at the speed of horror?

Tell me, please, the one
thing that’s not
a reflection of ourselves.

The granite cross on the cathedral’s roof--
admired from above, not yet complete--
may never be the holy figure from the sky.

Can the flesh manage
patience-- even with so much
to desire-- our future

under God’s construction, & what--
in our limpid & shipwrecked lives--
may we claim as vast as love?