Astounding—the dark clouds
which have gathered
this morning
could only have come
from nowhere,
could only be going
nowhere. And yet,
here we are
beneath them again—the believers,
sipping our coffee
a bit more devotionally,
letting our eyes wander
that much more slowly
over a few extra columns
of the day's first reading,
wavering a little longer
in the dimly lit front halls
where the rain jackets
and umbrellas are reverently hanging,
before diffidently opening
and closing our large doors
and beginning the gravid procession,
to and fro, past one another
without candles
or crosses—but because
we recognize
the damp feeling of being
audited
from an alter
somewhere behind a screen—
with our heads bowed
automatically a little
closer to our arched shoulders.
