Organic grains
of ancient, stained wood
reach across centuries
to meet the touch of my fingers
as I stroll through the Rococo cathedral.
Inlaid resplendent patterns,
curled and coiled,
dark wood against light-
each was carved painstakingly,
intuitively pieced
by ancestors’ calloused hands,
building on the work of
innumerable, hard earned lives.
I inherit their laborious fruits
and also their faults,
their joys and their agony-
tenacious, storied histories,
days and decades gnawed into
multi-faceted pellucid geometries,
habits and rumors
spawning Divine doctrine,
layered traditions, living myths-
all, perhaps, governed by
a beauteous, grand design, a sublime plan-
yet, a monkey’s puzzle in the end,
forever alluring, forever a dream,
inlaid within this wooden pew.