Methodist Hospital, Room 213

Take off your shoes: this ground is holy.

Let your feet encounter 

The coolness of this barren floor; 

Let your eyes behold

The faintly burning fluorescence, 

The white coated walls, gleaming with indifference.

Your mother’s fading 

Has made of this room a thin place 

Her weakened heart murmuring, hovering 

Between the parting veil of this world and the next –

The air heavy laden 

With the question of death.

Let your cloak of certainty fall 

As you begin to apprehend 

That this is the ground where angels tread.

Surely you have sensed their nearness, 

Their coming and going on a staircase formed

From the flat staccatos of your prayers.

Whatever befalls, 

Her life itself invites your embrace

Of the truth she has held all along:

Surely, 

The Lord was in this place

And you did not know it.