We In Our Worship
by Evelyn Kelly
When we lifted and levitated it, we
lost ourselves. We
opened and closed our mouths
the way we were always taught. We
killed our consonants with militaristic rhythm. We
coughed confused cacophony as we
grasped for something to hold on to. We
drowned in small but soaking streams of spotlight
and asked pardon for our past endeavors of paradise. We
lifted and levitated what we had lost:
that which lingers unanswered in our minds
that which makes us wonder if there is worth in the cost
of carrying the weight of ourselves and others
on frail shoulders and bones bent by the beat
of another year of headlines of wars
and pandemics and fires and earthquakes and
lonely students massacring other lonely students
and all the unwritten headlines hidden in our homes:
estranged sisters, and broken trust
how the church responded when a disease
sent antibodies attacking healthy brain cells,
another massacre of the innocent
because your faith was not enough
but we let loose a lark.
Lifted from wild depths like the waves
that return again and again and again to the shore
sometimes pounding, sometimes breaking,
sometimes slipping backwards
in an already-dissipating foamy tide,
we let loose a lark.
my neighbor asks does God really exist?
and moves on with his life,
like it’s a one-sided conversation
but we listen and we keep asking
until somehow from our limbs,
from our slowly dying organs
from us – we, the tossed seas –
the attempters of paradise –
we let loose a gentle lark.
While our hymnals were coffins
of limp and listless paper
somewhere in us - we let the lark loose
unfurrowed it, unbound it,
and fluttering free,
no strings clipping flight,
it left us with something
opened
inside us.