Coming From Evening Church
after Samuel Palmer, 1830

Suppose we did walk straight out of a stained-glass window,
through the churchyard and up the slope,
an endless gilded procession,
framed by the overarching trees.

Roof, hilltop, spire, a series of echoes.
Leaves printed on the moon
like patterns on a lamp.

We’d be purposeful,
held in the flaring lap of the earth.

Bearded like prophets, tall as saints,
we’d descend to the homesteads,
the ivy as real as we could want it.

And with our children and flowers
we’d keep on walking
in exceptional brilliance,
in the glass certainty of the world.