Inside this hushed rotunda, frescoes,
haloed figures, patches of worn plaster
around serpent-dragon, horse and lance
are like a map of endurance,
faith held to and held onto
through years of omen and eclipse.
We move through incense traces,
iteration of prayers and blessings,
not so far from shopping hall and traffic,
along a cusp of the sacred and shadow,
where everything might be laid out before us
in resurgent light across the iconostasis.
