Below The Firmament Poem by Noah Smits

Into the humid air I plunged my body, soul in tow,
the night's caress immersing both in peace despite my woe.
I clutched my cardboard Christ anew—
in truth, to signal virtue did this phony pilgrim go,
and why the floor of the Almighty fell, I cannot know.
A noiseless sound commenced, and grew—
My mind the Upper Room, some neural tongues of frictive heat
reacted as some epistemic Canaan walls were beat
by troops in orbit ‘round my head—
the lights of West De Pere, now glinting off the mercy seat
and outlining aside the figure of the Paraclete
which in my shadow did embed—
what was my open mind to do, but close again around
that rare pneumatic specter in that ground-beneath-the-ground?
Above, a ceiling! All is still! —
in Outside turned to Inside; I heard Silence burst with Sound;
I felt the pressure from the firmament, the upper bound;
I felt Agape turn my will—
The ceiling lifted since has flung agape the monstrous sky.
My senses are deceptive and my questions multiply.
"I felt Agape and I knew, "
I say in hopes that gnawing doubts will with the years pass by,
and I'll dissolve in everlasting arms the day I die,
and all I felt that night was true.