Rainbow light

I sat in the last row

of the cathedral

under the soaring vault,

untouched by god but bathed,

in the rainbow light

of stained glass saints.

It felt somehow like grace.

I saw the evening glow

on the bomb-crushed

office in Kuwait City

and listened to the call

to the faithful

sung from the minarets,

stung by the sweet notes

drifting overhead,

words I did not understand

but felt as if I did.

I sat in the temple

on the hill above the city

where high school classrooms

had been converted

into torture cells.

The incense and the candles

and the whispers

of the kneeling visitors

was a comfort from

the mass graves and

tower of bones.

In the darkness,

I was not enlightened,

once more aware

of the thing that was not there,

-but was.