When We Build Cathedrals
from Searching for Icarus: Poems for the Soul's Journey
WHEN WE BUILD CATHEDRALS
by Susan Dawn
She waits in the arch
of a centuries-old cathedral,
concealed beneath a canopy
of wooden rafters and ancient timber,
sitting vigil without story
while hymns and homilies
and the holy cry of sacred hearts
echo in the hallowed hall below.
Her maker carved her
into the high beam,
etching fine lines
along the curve of her wings,
folded forever, at rest,
her fragile beak faintly parted
to share in the chorus of her
four-chambered heart.
I share my heart in silence, too—
carve hope into blog posts
buried in the algorithm,
share stories of grace spoken into
the absence of audience,
channel love through spaces
between silences.
I lay my living legacy
brick by brick, page by page
embedded in the marrow of the world.
This is my cathedral,
chiseled from soul and
stained-glass
and scripture—
truth born from presence,
not pulpits.
But who looks up,
or sees deep beneath?
This open sanctuary
welcomes the weary
finding refuge in its pews,
but there is no altar here—
only a remembered vow
to be a candle in the night.
What meaning will remain
when the carvings are complete
and the scaffolding falls away?
What place do I have
in the history of the heart
when all that I’m building
is invisible to the gilded eye—
a bird with a song
perched in the rafters,
concealed within the cathedral’s
bone and beam, hymn unheard
and no less holy.
“No one will see her,”
they goaded with glee.
Her maker molded anyway.
That’s not why we create
beautiful things.
Searching for Icarus: Poems for the Soul’s Journey is available in eBook and paperback everywhere books are sold!
Behind the Poem
I wrote this poem in the early morning hours of a Sunday in July. It was one of the last poems I wrote as I was readying my manuscript for publication…