I borrow a cranny at high noon,
busily making it a hut,
a smoky, damp abode of
one whose speech is silence.
A guest,
I make myself at home.
I huddle,
back tight against a cool column,
a tree of marble
whose boughs arch into a cathedral.
Sitting ravenously
the ears continue to hear,
the half‑closed eyes still see.
This cosmos in concrete and buttress
hollows me out.
I snuggle
closer to the tree
and tuck my feet under.
Feet, don’t mar the pew.
This great grandmother in stone,
is chilled and immense on-the-whole,
warm and receptive in part.
Intimacy needs the heart of a nest,
mutters a French philosopher in my brain.
Over this architectural edge
I can peer into immensity.
You make the stations
without moving or breaking
the envelope of silence.
Others are here,
hidden between the pages
of a voluminous space.
Nameless things peek out from cracks,
bowels in holy mortar.
A beam drifts on a wisp
then skids off a brass cross.
Souls float among cherubs,
less naked than we.
I am wrapped in empty arms,
garments of awe.
The column cools the spine.
Somewhere behind
a coin clinks
with a silver ring.
The man at‑one with the tree
starts at the sound
but drifts back to contemplating his predicament.
Hush settles to her knees
and begins making silence of the routine.
For a bare moment
nothing at all transpires.
A herald’s voice
whispers sharply from a stained window.
I shuffle.
The lids flutter and the thighs ache,
almost asleep against the hard leg
of this architectural great grandmother.
“Time,” she whispers.
a cranny sits quietly
thinking on the thoughts
of his friend
appreciating his depth
and kindness
quiet in time
Ok, Steve Cranny, I get the pun! Your kindness and attentiveness is way beyond the moon!!!