Washington Cathedral

Too close, and you see nothing—old
            pale limestone, quarried
      with smoothness rocks forget
and fleck to worn grains, weather-worried
            and rough to hold
      against your palm. And yet

too far, you see too little—a view
            to quickly seize,
      a glimpse from busy streets
of towers over ragged trees
            dimmed distant blue.
      Within the cool retreats

behind the Bishop’s Garden wall,
            gazebo-caught
      the fullest prospect waits
for you. One glance can hold what’s sought,
            a sight of all,
      how everything relates:

grey walls held straight into the sky
            on buttress wings,
      the steep roofs, sunlit spires,
eaves decked with dark grotesques—hard things
            distorted, wry—
      deep lines the eye admires.

And yet this too is ineffective.
            The hedge below
      screens off the people drawn
around the base, so there is no
            clean perspective
      and sense of scale is gone.

To feel the power, pass inside
            the porch with its
      tympanic tracery,
through transept, past the piers that sit
            on either side
      bearing weight to free

the crossing. Stand where the marble floor
            casts echoes through
      the choir and down the nave,
and see, beside a darkened pew,
            how narrow four
      widths seem against the cave

of height, how low the vaulting looks
            compared to files
      of length. Bedecked and dashed
with carver’s craft, the chapels, aisles,
            and covert nooks
      lie in soft light that’s splashed

chrismaticly in stained cascade
            upon the tall
      hue-consecrated stone.
But still you cannot grasp it all
            until you’ve strayed
      before the altar. Atone:

go where the distant abstract rose
            bestows the only
      illumination, where
you stand in chancel shadows, lonely.
            When your breath slows
      look up and wait. From there,

the large cathedral’s darkly made,
            but at the rail
      the whole inside’s in view
and you can apprehend the scale
            of light and shade,
      of solid stone and you.

—original version 1993, March 1994; rewritten 24-28 July 2002; revised 19-21 October 2003

The original version was in octosyllabic lines with occasional rhyme; the rewrite was mostly to recast the form, the revision to shift the emphasis and clean up unsightly loose threads in the weave.

A theme I return to often, as can be seen in travel verse, and my repeated attempts to fix this.

---L.