Deciding which poem to share first isn’t easy. To read through all 250+ poems I’ve written would take a while, and even then there’s so many of them I love, but is that just because they’re mine and not because objectively people will benefit/enjoy them, and blah blah blah. So I just decided to pick one that K-Staters will especially appreciate and just came up yesterday in a conversation. My friend Steven Moser is an artist, and in an unplanned conversation at Bluestem Bistro, he talked about light — and specifically illustrated what he was saying by pointing to a painting (see above) that he’d done of Danforth Chapel, a beautiful place here on the campus of Kansas State University. (Steven’s art often hangs on the walls of Bluestem and in fact this one is there right now as part of a show!)
His picture reminded me of a poem I wrote about Danforth in 2017, a couple weeks after I started writing them. Well, actually the first phrase, “stained glass hands,” just came to my mind without reference to Danforth and I really liked its feel in my mind, so I wrote it down first and then what ended up coming out was a poem about the chapel, a place where I spent a bunch of hours when I was a student (occasionally sleeping on the heated floors under a pew between classes) and have also done a ton of prayer things over the years related to Ichthus.
I say the poem is about Danforth Chapel, and it is sorta, but then it’s really about much more than that. See what you think and feel free to comment below; that’s what people do, right? Or don’t. We’re all free here haha.
DANFORTH
Stained-glass hands
Silent, outstretched
Cool caresses
To yearning soul
Past the chatter
Mind oasis
Still small voice
My heart’s home
No one sees us
Johnny stays out
Delicious quiet
I’ve known you long
Why seek cisterns
Broken, failing
Liquid presence
Still at hand