THE LECTURER LADY

She says, assuming all of us Miami-ites as well as
               Anglicans, that those of us

who were in church on Sunday August 23rd and not at
              home nailing shut doors, taking
down the pictures, will remember that the psalm was 46.
              Therefore we will not fear, though

earth be moved and mountains topple into depths of sea, the Lord
              of hosts is with us, the God
of Jacob is our stronghold. The lesson for this Sunday then
              is: if you would find something
to suck comfort from, you need to make your own community.
              Huddled in your broom closet

hiding from maddening winds, whiplash of rain, your death stalking
              if you would have a fragment
to clutch salvation from, you should have been at church.  Some poem
              could then visit you, fly into
your heart like a rosary to hold. Concrete walkways do not
              succeed in keeping Nature

out.  See here and there small leaves have fossilled themselves into
              man-made stone. Yet you have to
make your own. Knowing it will be blown down, broken, overgrown
              still, you have to make your own.