Goldsboro narrative #24:
Second benediction
For Mr. Holman

Knowing we still needed to dance,
the man who kept company with men

played the church organ sassy

and let us sway ourselves near him
even as we gathered still beside him,

watching his thin fingers talk the way they dared

when the sermon had been made
and we lingered to pray for sound

because the body waits for sound. We waited

for the moment his fingers spoke in their tongues,
listened for the urgent translation into this:

We have returned to a blessed place;
Our family is here with us, even the dead and not-born;
We are journeying to the source of all wonder,

We journey by dance.     Amen.

 

Poems by Forrest Hamer: