At St. Joseph’s Oratory
For Khatereh in Isfahan
On the lip of a cliff
its dome an unblinking eye beseeching heaven,
the Oratory stands as silent as Brother Andre’s heart,
its stones polished by decades of feet shuffling
from room to room,
its walls refracting the flap, flap of flames
cupped in blood red glass.
What can surpass the wonder of a Moslem and a Jew
pondering St. Joseph
as he looks down upon the wooden sticks
that hang like hope from iron grates?
Crutches flank trays of banked candles -
flickering row upon row –
reaching to the feet of the man
who taught Jesus how to shape wood.
Wood, like the crutches that
hang in hope
beside waxing flames,
hundreds of golden tongues,
whipping the air into a frenzy of faith
inside their glass hearts,
entreating us – Moslem and Jew –
to believe that we too can hang up
our crutches.
