To get here I walked past the community garden 

Late summer sunflowers reaching over the fence 

Heads bobbing, eager to gossip. 

I stepped over a rusty spark plug, broken glass, and worse.

Past the weed-like vine we can’t get to grow on our fence,

Past what used to be a mill. 

Crossed over the Jones Falls, 

With its litter and its stubborn heron, 

Standing tall and lonely in the rushing stream.

Now I sit and write with knees propped, 

The red door faded pink bolted shut. 

No trespassing. 

And the silence behind me, 

Behind the doors, 

Fills me 

Even though, in the periphery, 

Around the church and me, 

The city hums. 

The smell of damp wood and paper 

Seeps out of the place 

Past lead paint chips 

With their telltale square cracks. 

I think of what’s inside: 

Dusty pews, no doubt, 

Stained glass cloudy with time. 

Hymns raised to rafters at the last service cushioning the decaying roof,

Or maybe they escaped and found their way to wherever prayers go.

An anxious-looking person 

Scurries by on the sidewalk with a leashed dog. 

Walking up the hill, 

Frowning and walking back down again, 

Considering and reconsidering something. 

(The dog ready to go in whichever way she chooses). 

All this happening under an ivy-covered apple tree 

That has managed to produce a solitary fruit. 

Victorious, lonely. 

Like the heron 

Like the church.