God! What a nice house you have!
I saw staff washing and ironing sheets
in quarters, adjacent to the hall
we were touring,
with medieval pictures of pastoral
Europe.
Ropes of red and gold.
The heavy scent of ancient oil
in a dank, musty travelogue
of the dark ages.
A lotus opening on the water.
The shimmer of time has changed.
The effervescence of our world
wandering among icons seven centuries old.
And there, across the portico,
between gawking tourists, sunlight,
nuns washing and ironing
the sheets of the Vatican.
What a day!
Before entering I saw boys and girls
going off to school,
outside the Sistine Chapel.
The chatter of happy children.
I stood by the solid wall enclosing
the apartments of holiness,
admiring the little weeds
growing from the crumbling stone,
and in my soul a candle burning
in a reverie of God,
so vast and beautiful
above the Gobi Desert,
the vast latitudes of the Pacific,
the little houses of Chili,
and the white sheets of the Vatican
washed by the reverent hands
of nuns, with love.