Chapel

If I could design the world,
I'd leave some of it wild and unpredictable,
like a freshwater pond
with a thin barrier to the tide
that will become salt, fresh
and salt again in one short lifetime.

I would make breath and blood give life,
but not forever because here
is at last a lonely place
like the middle of the sea.

I would give one opportunity
the size of a grain of sand
for true love to be found,
if there is the kind of effort
that lifts terns across poles,
that keeps walking all the way
through the fog of wanting.

I would lace the blue bowl of the sky
with linen clouds
and let them grow dark blades
that stir the wind and sink frail ships.

I would honor the sky and clouds
as I imagine Michelangelo did
his ceiling and his paint.