Weekend Warring

 

It’s Sunday, and I wonder

What to do

Where does an outcast go

To Zoar or another city of refuge

Will I be taken on

And how do I breathe the air

Of those who had abandoned me,

Now empty

 

It’s a search for something

A church without a church

See the steeple

Where are the people

A confessing place

Otherwise, an empty chapel

Would do well

Or a ruin of a larger place

Where faithful life might have been teeming

Once

And no longer

Through caprice

Of ownership or demographics

A tall room for birds now

Maybe those who listened

To Saint Francis

 

I don’t mean to hide

I am energized by people

As sometimes they have been by me

Even though they took too much

Last time

And what is left is wondering

And, yes, wandering, too

 

A walk outside beside a grave

A columbarium, mausoleum

A museum to the dead

Though I think it might be good

Remembrance

And for the living,

We who are outside

Not even looking in, anymore

Each of us stays in place

Waiting

Attending

 

C L Couch

 

 

Leon Martinez