Knees apart, feet upon the cold, flat floor, Hands loosely clasped about the cane's head. The pew's wood is cold and unforgiving, Moulding the errant spine into the shape it ought take. Fresh air made biting with frost runs through your hair and brushes your cheeks and brow. The draught is as expected as a father's kiss (When hasn't a church been draughty?) and it feels like a welcome touch to your skin, Cold but loving. You feel the chill, and the seat beneath you, And the way your suit settles on your shoulders. This is the feel of God. The cathedral is quiet, and it lacks the cacophony of whispers, crinkling clothes and disordered footsteps of the services. And yet silence is not to be found: You hear the way the breeze whistles between beams in the high ceiling, hear the soft scratch and flare of a match as Father Kennedy lights candles. He has new shoes, and the leather creaks as he walks: his robes rustle against each other. This is the sound of God. A thousand scents are thick upon the air: the sickly-sweetness of incense clouds the air and you can smell which candles are new, and which will soon burn down to the wick. You smell the cobwebs and musty corners, and you smell the ghosts of the congregation - perfumes, shampoos and other products line the pews like the bottles in supermarket aisles. Best of all, the scent of pages and boo glue, the fragrant presence of half a thousand Bibles beneath every pew. This is the scent of God. And in your mouth smarts a new bruise gained in the heat of last night's brawl; You taste your own blood Close to bursting from the swollen skin, coppery with an iron tang. This, you tell yourself night after night, is the taste of God. God is everywhere, in every breath and exhalation; in every gap, in every pause, in every punching blow. Constant. Ever-present. Ephemeral. Heavy in every sense but sight: This is the love of God.
Alone on a church pew // for Matt Murdock // like for a poem
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