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Chapel by the Sea
Katharyn Howd Machan

Climb its three steps carefully,
counting the black door’s nine small windows,
each a dream you had as a child
when you’d heard of God and believed that God
lived high above in blue upon blue
where He sat in a chair of gold.
Now that you know you are part
of God—a cell, a breath, a laugh, a whisper—
you are free to enter this place
of sloping roof and cupola
where wide-winged white birds glide and land
beside tall palm trees’ prayers. Stay
in serenity, smiling, gazing, as long
as you need and will. You’re welcome
whenever you feel the call
to be where time is silent, still.

for Jeanne

—
Katharyn Howd Machan is a professor in the Department of Writing at Ithaca College. She has served as coordinator of the Ithaca Community Poets and director of the Feminist Women’s Writing Workshops, Inc. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies, textbooks, and collections (most recently A Slow Bottle of Wine, winner of the 2019 Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Competition), and she has edited three thematic works, including Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology (Split Oak Press, 2012).

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