Time stirring in a sermon
stiffens slowly.  The Sun
slips through the window’s edges,
softly shaping foreign faces, peacefully
broken away from the world by birds playing
tag in greening trees, draped with skirts
sewn from the Sun’s golden glow.

Images black
without the back of eyelids
dreaming beyond our benches.

Time set and solid, I get up
and leave 100 closed eyes behind
and walk into a church to see
the same Sun’s beams trapped
inside stain-glass.  Frozen shards,
holding dust, warm each red pew.

I lay down in the emptiness
of the seats, the silence of the hymns,
absence of a pulpit,
and sleep.