It was a basilica of marble and light.
My feet hurt,
but not as much as my heart.
Beauty is a giant spear.
It is lightning in the eyes.
On the steps
I looked across the great plaza,
to buses, cars,
streets running like tributaries
from a glowing lake.
People wandered,
solitary,
in pairs,
or like tribes crossing a desert.
What had I expected to find?
The hollowness of hills?
It was here.
The sound of a shore
and the sighing of a sea?
It was here.
A bazaar with people looking for their souls,
taking pictures,
murmuring like the wind in the trees?
It was here.
Or my own unexpected sense
of looking behind a door,
and finding the faces of mysterious beings,
Michelangelo,
Peter,
the remote faces of Jesus and Mary.
It was here.
And they said nothing,
letting the words be my own,
their vision,
whatever I brought
from the valley of my life,
into this vast church,
the soaring dome,
an arcade of hope
of unquenchable thirst
in stone, paint, mosaic,
showing the arms of God
looking for his children
like a father,
hopelessly in love.