We stack the dead
names of the faithful
high in the incensed air,
light prayers beneath them
till the altar burns with words.
The nave knows their smoke,
remembers our memories of them.
The chancel recants our absence
from their lives until we live
again in the space at the rail
beside them, these saints
unSainted, the faint flames
of our unmartyred selves
riding their iridescent fires.
—Marjorie Maddox
Image by Dennis Benkert licensed via Creative Commons. Image cropped.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Deliver Us from Evil
In a recent New York Times article entitled “Freedom With a Side of Guilt: How Food Delivery…
Natural Law Needs Revelation
Natural law theory teaches that God embedded a teleological moral order in the world, such that things…
Letters
Glenn C. Loury makes several points with which I can’t possibly disagree (“Tucker and the Right,” January…
