Past the tympanum’s bronze doors
under the rose window,
as many times years ago,
on late afternoons, I hear
only my steps on the marble floor.
Under the height of granite
and all things still,
I sit on a folding chair
at the end of a Hundred and Twelfth
and Amsterdam, the end of an aisle
far from the altar –
no detail seen at the ceiling,
a perpetual dark – faint, stained glass
more luminous as I stare.
Out in the garden “the unstained
light of open day” –
…………………………cherry blossoms
shadowing crooked trunks
……………………………………….provide
for the bees, humming, just
here, off the sidewalk – late
sunlight at Morningside Heights.