Churchgoers
What a cool, sunny-blue nine o'clock Lord's May morning this is,
To be walking the sidewalks of the Moorlands, in Clayton, Missouri,
Watched over by foraging robins and squirrels —
A sanctuary partaking of silence conducive to sleeping-in souls,
A church in which my meditations might worship in peace.
For a blessed lost-in-thoughts hour, I listen to my solitary footfalls
Keeping pace with my reflective spirit,
As I hike up Byron's steep elevation, down Parkdale, up Buckingham,
Down Oxford, up Wellington, down York, up Cromwell,
Over Glen Ridge, past Byron, to Wydown, then Hanley —
A wistful stitching of adolescence's history,
Which the kid I was sewed into my long-ago youth's street wisdom.
Nearing my apartment, I converge on parishioners
Emerging from Central Presbyterian Church,
And blend into the serenity I sense aglow, in their eyes.
05/02/10
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