A Mystic’s Church

A Mystic’s Church

Steven Knepper

It was no mystic’s church:
no stained glass, statuary, tabernacle,
no censers, icon visages, or bells,
religio with barest ties to bind.

It was a plumb, plain box for God, with maple
pews, green carpet worn down to white cord, clear windows
portaling spring breeze and Sunday morning light.
An outhouse was the restroom in my youth.

One time I went into the empty church
after weeding out its flower beds and fell
asleep beneath the faded garden scene,
green carpet giving me the psalmist’s rest.

And once my mother brought her mystic’s heart
into that church, filled with a farmwife’s many
cares: financial strains, a sickly son, a drought,
and deeper mysteries that were her own.

When her bent joints began to throb, she lifted
up her head and saw the halo overtop
the sorrowed eyes glow twice
on the sole painting in the sanctuary.

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Steven Knepper
Poet & Teacher

Steven teaches in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies at Virginia Military Institute.  He has published poems in The Alabama Literary Review,The William and Mary Review, Pembroke Magazine, SLANT, The American Journal of Poetry, Roanoke Review, First Things, and other journals.  

Photography by GattoTere