St. Paul’s at Midday

The first footstep
through the opened doors,
and the city falls away.

Above me
the high white ribs of the ceiling
rise like the inside of a great ship
turned quietly toward heaven.
Blue darkness flecked with stars.
Arches opening into arches,
stone arms wide enough
for the hurried tourist,
the old woman with her cane,
the kneeling man
who has carried too much for too long.

I move slowly.

Candles breathe their small gold prayers
into the dimness.
Before the icons
I strike a match.

Two flames.

One for my daughter.
One for my son.

The fire trembles at first
then steadies itself,
as all living things must learn to do.

And suddenly
the music returns to me,
those long months of practice,
the patient scales,
the stubbornness of the fingers
trying to remember beauty.

There was a time
not so long ago
when my hands shook so badly
the piano seemed impossibly distant,
like a house seen across water
at dusk.

I look down at them now.
These same hands.

Then toward the altar,
bright in the center of the cathedral
like a calm heart.

Around me
the saints keep their silence.
Stone faces.
Worn eyes.
A great company of witnesses
who know already
how fragile the body is,
how astonishing recovery can be.

And beside me
the woman I love kneels quietly,
her head bowed.

What else could I ask for?

We rise with the others
and move down the long aisle
through the soft thunder of footsteps,
through incense and light,
through the breathing hush
of midday prayer.

A wafer placed upon the tongue.
A sip of wine.

No bargain offered.
No test to pass.
Only this:

love given freely
to the broken,
the grateful,
the unfinished.

Outside, London continues
with all its engines and noise.

But here,
under the great dome of St. Paul’s,
for one brief hour,
I understand enough.