Mosaic

I.

The arms of my childhood stretched from the window of the chapel,

a cavern long cleared of benches and other trappings.

Only waifs and wayfarers found it,

who had fled for sanctuary from the arm of the flesh

striking out in retribution

against the failure of fate to fulfill dreams,

as expressed in such transgressions as soiled shoes

and unsatisfactorily completed chores.

Christ's banner called, "COME UNTO ME,"

no matter how deep the fall from grace:

through lost Little League games to failed tests

to dates that traded up to shun disappointment.

Evidently, He did not see it,

or at least was not so startled.

He always reached; He always called.

II.

I could now see the top of the window sill,

full of the dust of stone, of me,

and of those before me whose legacy was retained below mine.

Christ reached in the half-light as a dove mourned and mist fell,

causing the whole window to weep.

How did this quiet place understand

the momentary light affliction of mortals

finding that filling larger shoes did not equal stepping into invincibility?

Shadows in the corner drew my eyes~

I didn't see the stone,

but heard the ring and dance of glass across the floor

through the throb of adrenaline,

and the clicking as it skipped to a resting place out of sight.

It was forgotten in the distress of random color

that had lost its form that lay across the floor.

The window still wept, I wept,

and the dove still mourned.

I sifted through the shards, touching some familiar form,

red trailIs spreading through the tears of the window,

and the window's requiem.

III.

Light broke through the heavy air,

the clouds spent in the mist.

The laughter of the sunlight on the ceiling

in greens and blues and reds shed long before that day

had not been told that Christ lay shattered.

Perhaps it saw what I had not~

as I lifted my gaze to the stream through the window,

I saw that He still called, "COME UNTO ME."

He called still!

I remembered kindly coaches,

invested teachers,

and just-friends who resisted the scorning

of those fancying themselves our betters and critics:

a mosaic of similar tesserae.

The had colors like to Christ's,

who knows that the broken speak more freely

because they have flown from their original framework

to fill a larger place.

The dove mourned one last time that I had not seen Him as He was,

and fell silent.

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Free verse allows a pivotal moment in time to be set up and all of its colors and textures examined in-depth without concern that the couplets be forced to rhyme. Sometimes happy accidents of rhyme (red/shed) or alliteration (failure/fate/fill and freely/flown/framework/fill) occur naturally as the narration unfolds.