The Unbreakable Wall

 

...after a lucid dream

 

 

 

They came swarming
a vast throng of them
with one fugitive mind
and ancestral prescience
as if some flighty deadline
must be crossed before dawn
Choking vapours and wildfire
snapped at their heels
Where had they come from
and where were they going?
Since they occupied focus
what did they portend?

 

Mists crept where they listed
admitting beams of light
to the transcendent dome
of a cosmic temple ringed
with Virgin and martyrs
in sapphire and stellar gold
We soon learned who they were
these besieged, the Altar in sight
and shells of pilgrimage shed
and we knelt in anguished prayer
knowing they carried the Cross
of Christ in the world, for us.

 ©RosyCole2022

 The Virgin Orans, 'The Unbreakable Wall' at Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv