devotion
I can’t call it a struggle
not in the sense I would wish
I’m sure I don’t believe
in fact it’s hard for me to imagine
I ever did, except as obligation
and yet this morning again —
while walking the quiet sidewalks
of this Southern college town
listening to a priest read Herbert and Jarrell —
I imagined what it would be like
to say goodbye to all this day-to-day
to wrap my body in black
stand in the glow of stained glass
say the words I can still recite from memory
nearly thirty years after
I picture their faces, lost as I am
looking to me to make sense of
what cannot be made sense of
what a gift that must be
to sit at the center of so many lives
to reassure them that it all means something
that today is more than another spin
around an axis most of them
must also take on faith
I want to be the one the grieving family calls
the calm presence at the bedside
or the smiling face to those whose days
contain few smiles
I want to wear the uniform of compassion
to speak with the voice of righteousness
to say to the strikers, the protesters,
the homeless, the jailed:
you are not alone
and in that moment to see in their eyes
their silent response:
we need you
17 April 2013
Auburn, AL
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