In the Chapel of St. Mary's.
I can't tell you what happened there,
why I entered the sanctuary, a non-believer.
Only that, I've been thinking about worship,
the altar of the body and supplication, for some time.
My thoughts turn, as they often do in the season of absence,
to my wife, and how tired a God can
get when called, and too often, for little reason,
but loneliness.
Of course, I don't mean God here, but rather the woman
I love, who alters the orbit of my life,
pulls me with the density of light toward her,
the draw thinner when she is farther away, as she is now.
I try to find comfort in the inevitability of science,
when what I lack is faith.
The sanctuary, the stained glass,
for girls saturating it with soft chatter,
small pots of stargazer lilies, a lace ribbon for each pew,
this place is full of faith in the unknown,
and I don't know how to believe in what I cannot see.
Tonight, I will drive through the foothills
and into the valley.
I will try to make a little practice,
to trust you are with me, even though you are somewhere else.