In the Belly

Most everything is fluid.
Or was.
All of this, us:
we came out of deep waters
and we are still swimming an
ocean with many tide pools.
Places that collect, hold on.

Today in the old chapel
I got caught in the aisle
while the business I was
on rode out past the buoys
into the gulf of my afternoon.
For a few minutes I just
stood there in the heat
and the half light among
the stacked stone walls and
ancient chestnut beams
vaulting themselves in a
100 year old ceiling.
It was raining hard
and it is summer and
all the stained glass windows
are shut up.
It was a thick moment,
all the air heavy and my face
wet with a century's worth
of wedding words, funeral
rememberances, 10,000
songs and prayers enough
to deafen angels if you
put them all together.

I didn't see anyone but
would hardly say I stood there
alone.
How many souls caught here in
the guts of this place have cast
themselves toward those
weathered rafters, the
chestnut ribs of this beast
that swallowed me whole
on my way to somewhere...
How many afternoon
thunderstorms have fallen
in response?

Outside, the rain slacked,
a crow exploded and
I slogged back down the aisle,
pushing through the steam,
a holy, salty silence,
spat up on the far shore.