Mount Zion Lutheran Church
slides down from
heaven on the steep
incline of an A-frame.

Shares her lot with a half
dozen pine trees. After snow
in March wraps blue
shoulders in robes

of white. A gold sky bends
light to make the vision of
her supplicants
spherical. From her gutters

an overflow of
grace has left a million
icicles: the shining teeth
of god. By noon they'll exist

only in your memory
(sliver-thin, translucent)
and the softening ground
whispering hymns

of invitation to the striding
feet of
passers-by, the winding
roots of pine trees . . .