Osmond Ward Chapel, Now Demolished

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Sometimes from the threshold
of these doors
we are greeted

by another self,
another world
we wish to worship,

incarnation
the tithe we offer
for such a crossing:

we, seeking the divine,
the divine leaning toward us,
fading coal of memory

igniting into color,
presence and invisibility
becoming one,

Christ choosing fishers-of-men
on a heightened mural wall
behind the rostrum.

Here, our woes
know no hierarchy,
all grief being equal.

Outside, the wasteland
sloughs off,
inner life aflame.

What hymns ring from here
open our veins
and capillaries,

bread and wine like arteries
throbbing through our temples.
Whatever message or mystery

is crucial here
will be elusive, mythical,
a shadow of what’s yet to be.

What we intuit here
from flesh and blood,
body to body,

our lives will depend upon,
the Word made flesh,
all the doors

and windows
of this edifice
flying open.

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