Church

Blue music, blue walls,
blue light in a steeple
by the side of any road
through any town.

Could be a low building
by the road, could be tall and slick
but mostly it won’t be.
It’s always church, though,

inside the blue steeple;
blue walls echo blue music,
blue church is calling out —
and I’m just a passenger

on this bus that won’t stop
as it passes by blue steeples,
so I’m singing along in my sleep,
blue pillow under my head.

I call any place I can hear blue music
my church.  That’s not far wrong,
in fact it’s just right —
hear the rafters knock?

That bell?  That glory of
singers?  That sound
of walls holding in
wholeness, holiness —

and on this bus too, a holiness.
Time means nothing on a bus
full of blue music that’ll end soon
though it will return.

I won’t wait up for it.
Will tuck my head into the pillow
and sleep a while, the song
in me, midnight ringing on for hours.

Tags: poetry, poems, music