Lightning Strikes Churches

A church is a makeshifted shelter, a lean-to
thrown up against heaven, a wobbly but warm
enclosure that all the unready rush into
before the sharp edge of the storm.
When lightning strikes churches,
the pigeons know why.
They burst from their perches
and soar in the churchyard’s blank sky.

A church is a fistful of feelings—it’s steeple
a finger unflinchingly jabbing at clouds—
enclosing the longing the righteous can keep all
their rightness, unreached by the crowds.
When lightning strikes churches
it feels out our worth,
then, finding no purchase,
it dissipates into the earth.

A church is a monument, far out of fashion,
that clings to the crumbling brink of the land,
a ritual built between Isaac’s cold question
and Abraham’s trembling hand.
When lightning strikes churches
it surges with light
and restlessly searches
for faith formed unbent in the night.
A church is a boat with a broad bow to carry
the last lines of life through the world-wasting flood,
a gunnel-thin wall between us and the fury
that’s frothing and foaming our blood.

When lightning strikes churches
it shudders our core.
The ship leaps and lurches
then leans to the unsighted shore.