Sunday Hymnal

At the First Baptist Church

we sang out the strains

of The Old Rugged Cross

in four-part harmony,

mostly in soprano voices,

men and women carrying the melody,

and the bass barely heard;

the tenors strain to reach notes

too high for their untrained voices,

and the altos are lost among the rest.

But it was Sunday and the joyful noise

rose high in this old church

where the faithful gathered weekly.

We sat in our family pews,

rising on command at the organ’s first notes

to sing the old songs of faith,

a faith that daily sustained us,

brought us here on Sundays, faithfully.

And the Old Rugged Cross,

that emblem of suffering and shame

gave us a Blessed Assurance,

a foretaste of glory divine;

then sings my soul, oh Lord,

How Great Though Art, saved and sheltered

here in the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church

singing out the words of the hymns I grew up with,

hymns of praise and a faith that sustains,

great is thy faithfulness.

Parakeets

My grandmother had parakeets,

little yellow and green and turquoise

birds in a cage by the kitchen door,

looking out the window onto the yard

and garden, apt pets for a woman

whose domain was the warmth of her kitchen.

Perhaps their singing was a longing

to be out among the flowers and sky,

the sunshine warm on their feathers,

outside with the others, less colorful,

wren and robin and sparrow, preening

themselves in the garden below,

or maybe they sang for the cheeriness

of her company, her own song softly hummed.

Theirs was a song, though, that heartened

my grandmother as she worked there:

clothes washed and wrung and hung

out to dry, flapping in a warm breeze blowing,

like birds’ wings fluttering in a cage,

ready to fly, free and away;

or cookies made, sweets for the grandchildren,

and herself, snuck from the cookie jar

always full on the counter, an old tin

canister handy for the smallest of hands;

or a family to be cooked for, she and gramp

daily fed a country meal or a large brood

of children and grandchildren on a Sunday

after church encircling the dining room table,

a holiday or a special day, a birthday celebrating life.

I don’t remember when they left, the parakeets,

don’t remember the time from them being there

and then not, something we didn’t notice,

only one day finding the cage in the attic room

where the old and discarded went, curiosities

to grandchildren, cousins exploring

this secret world of the attic, secrets

from a past we never knew, wouldn’t understand,

wondering where they went to, the parakeets,

were they happy now, and free.

And at her end, dementia-bound,

my grandmother retreated to the attic of old memories

and discarded wonders, where, curious, we could not go,

searching for her and finding only the cage

she occupied now, locked fast against us, but freed

perhaps to look out to different gardens,

different sunshine, and maybe seeing us, listening

for her own song softly sung unheard,

remembering the warmth of her kitchen,

remembering the warmth of her love.

Folk Song

The dew lay heavy on the grass

that covered the graves dug here

long ago, the tombstones worn and tilted,

their etched names and dates unreadable

or faint, lichen and mold filling in

the grooves carved lovingly at their parting;

those who cared enough are buried here, too,

now unremembered, unvisited, uncared for.

And in the early morning she walks,

the hem of her dress spoiled in the wetness

lingering, her feet barely disturbing

the grass she lightly treads, stepping

between his grave and her own, this specter

remembering him who left her early, taking

with him to this empty grave the locket

bearing her visage and a lock of hair

to remember her by, going off to war

to die alone on a battle field;

his body was lost and not returned,

only a letter long delayed announcing

him missing, gone the way of soldiers dying.

She died of grief, they said,

taking her own life in the weeks

turning to months before the year’s end

since the letter came; she had waited, before,

faithfully praying at the little church

reserved for the faithful, finding pleasure

in her memories and awaiting his return

to wed as they’d pledged, betrothed

before he left, one of a band of men, boys

still, taking up arms for a just cause

to secure the future he’d promised her,

a small home and a farm, a new family beginning,

sons and daughters and their wives and husbands,

children round the hearth growing and growing

old together, facing uncertainty and life

in its harshness, rising to meet it, as one.

And alone, unconsoled now and afraid, she grieved

and prayed but found no comfort, nothing

to carry her forward, desiring nothing but him,

and finding naught, they found her hanging,

a scarf stretched tight and pulling her downward

to the earth that could not hold her upright,

for he was gone and for him she had longed.

And now she wanders in the early morning dew

that lays heavy on the graves dug long ago,

her own and his among the gravestones worn

and tilted that mark where she lays, uncomforted,

a scarf tied tight around her neck

and the hem of her dress wet and spoiled,

as spoiled as her life had been for a dream

she held and for another life taken, an ideal

of a future that never came, never could.

Somewhere, too, he wanders alone in the dew,

a locket bearing her visage and a lock of hair

clutched tight in hands that will never again

hold her as he’d pledged, taking up arms

for a future he wouldn’t have, couldn’t

have, lost, alone, and searching.

AM Coffee

They gather most mornings

at the Golden Arches,

old men, maybe wives,

or widowed and alone.

They drink coffee, black

and strong, or mellowed,

a touch of cream and sugar,

perhaps a bite to eat,

lingering there just

to share good conversation

in the company of good folks

like themselves, folks

beyond the years, beyond

the pettiness of age,

time, now, unhurried.

The senior discount is nice,

but they’d gather anyway,

reduced or not.