{"id":5668,"date":"2006-12-05T08:02:28","date_gmt":"2006-12-05T13:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5668"},"modified":"2015-05-25T16:30:15","modified_gmt":"2015-05-25T20:30:15","slug":"great-cathedrals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5668","title":{"rendered":"“Great Cathedrals”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure if I would call this a poem – it feels a bit more like a piece of prose, with lines broken up … but I’m loving it. Thanks, Garrison Keillor<\/a> (so often you pick crap poems, dude … but every now and then … there is a gem)<\/p>\n

“Great Cathedrals” by George Bilgere, from The Good Kiss: Poems<\/a>\"\"<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Before a date, my college roommate
\nUsed to drive his candy-apple red Camaro
\nDown to the car wash and spend the afternoon
\nWashing, waxing, vacuuming it,
\nDetailing the chrome strips, buffing the fenders,
\nSpraying the big expensive tires
\nWith their raised white lettering<\/p>\n

That said something like Intruder
\nOr Marauder, with a silicone spray
\nUntil they were slick and dark as sex.
\nHe polished that car as if each caress,
\nEach pass of the chamois, each loving
\nStroke of the terry cloth would increase,<\/p>\n

By measurable degrees,
\nThe likelihood that in the immaculate
\nFront seat, with its film of freshly applied
\nVinyl cleaner, at the end of a cul-de-sac
\nSomewhere above the campus,
\nShe would consent to be rubbed
\nAnd buffed just as lovingly.<\/p>\n

We do what we can,
\nAnd if God is no more impressed
\nBy the cathedral at Chartres
\nThan by a righteously clean and cherry
\nCamaro, at least He can’t say
\nWe haven’t tried<\/p>\n

With all our might to conceal our fear
\nThat we have little else to offer
\nThan stained glass or polished chrome,
\nThe elbow grease of our good intentions.<\/p>\n

So I’m happy to see
\nThat in the Christmas card photo he sent
\nMark stands, balding now,
\nWith a dignified gut, a pretty wife,
\nAnd a couple of nice-looking kids, in front
\nOf the great cathedral
\nLike the sweet vision of a future
\nHe’d been vouchsafed one day
\nLong ago, through Turtle Wax
\nOn a gleaming hubcap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure if I would call this a poem – it feels a bit more like a piece of prose, with lines broken up … but I’m loving it. Thanks, Garrison Keillor (so often you pick crap poems, dude … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[160],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5668"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5668"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103042,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5668\/revisions\/103042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}