5:00 Mass

The church is a ship in the brightening snowstorm;

shafts of light falling in through the blue windows.

It's almost night and starting to get light!

The planet, too, adrift

in an infinite blizzard of stars---

Where most of us are sick

and starving in the pitching dark, and the partying

masters up above

don't know where we are either.

We love one another. We don't really know

anyone well, but

we love one

another.

--"5:00 Mass" by Franz Wright from his Pulitzer Prize winning collection Walking to Martha's Vineyard.