…and, for a moment, existence becomes something you can put your arms around…
For Fellow, Monday morning
pauses its acceleration.
Briefly,
the tension in his gut,
a ceaseless tugging,
stops…
or seems to.
Space marks this
a third of the way
down inside Fellow’s
steaming coffee cup.
Sip.
For the kindest of moments,
his pulsing blood matches
the hurtling of time over
sunrise.
Things glide to equal. He
breathes but doesn’t feel
the need to chase after
breaths.
This brief peace lets him
drink from earlier days.
Fellow becomes a baby
nestled
against Sunday morning’s
collarbone. Father’s lapel,
tithing envelopes packed
beneath, wheezes air
squeezed from papery
trappings.
In a foyer grown still,
parishioners inhale.
Briefly,
nothing speeds up
in this equal world.
Poet’s Note
Reactions to this poem are welcome in the comments section below. For another poem set in a meetinghouse, try A Pipe Organ for Perdition. Thank you for reading.
Wheat & Tares 
This poem reminds us of “earlier days” that were truly wonderful. Days when children in neatly pressed clothes would join their parents in a Sabbath experience that was unhurried and peaceful.
Sadly, the Sabbath experience of many children today is rushed and disorganized. They and their parents have stayed up too late on Saturday, and get up too late on Sunday. When they do awaken, they do not have the peaceful experience on the babe mentioned in this poem. Instead, the morning consists of violent video games, Facebook, and YouTube.
O that we could go back to walking into the “foyer grown still” referenced by the poem. For far too long, foyers have been chaotic and noisy.
If this brief peace of reliving infancy requires a third of a cup of coffee, many of us will have difficulty relating. Will diet Coke do the trick?
My Sundays used to be the most stressful day of the week. High Council meeting at 6:30, Ward Council at 9:00, the three-hour block at 10:30, etc. Life was crazy when I looked forward to Monday. And Diet Coke was there every step of the way.
Josh H makes a good point. When I was in the bishopric, we would start with bishopric meeting at 6:30am, followed by PEC or ward council, followed by the three hour block, followed by the counting of donations, finished off by a fireside or court of honor at the end of the day. It was not uncommon for all of this to be eight hours or more. Anything but peaceful.
Yes, that was one of my lessons from Covid, that the only way to make my Sabbath a delight was to shut everything down. Sundays are frequently the most stressful day of the week for me and I sometimes weigh through more bureaucratic nonsense on that day than I do in a week at work. Covid taught me that organizational bureaucracy is not just an irritant to my spiritual life but a detriment.
Allergy and Josh, poems are subjective. Feel free to substitute Diet Coke. Whatever gives that transient burst of energy and a brief sense of being equal to the tasks of the day.
Rudi, what a great summary of a busy Sabbath. Thank you. For me, the most important word in the poem is “briefly.” This caffeine-induced sense of tranquility is brief and will not last. Fellow’s literal Monday, the metaphorical Sunday it calls to mind, will be as hectic as Rudi describes. If I were to develop the poem further, I’d make that fleeting aspect of peacefulness more explicit.
I think the peaceful aspect is mostly because of the infant perspective. As a child, I didn’t see the efforts of the adults, just the comfortable safety of the congregation. I didn’t see the conflicts between ward members or the stresses of families on the brink of divorce. I heard the quiet, reverent, familiar hymns, the smell of the water fountain and the mimeograph, the grainy texture of the tithing envelopes, and so on. Although even for the adults, there’s something peaceful in low stakes busywork, which is how most church meetings feel to me, even decision-making ones. I have found them to be far more bureaucratic than what I experienced in a corporate setting, and more focused on stories and people than presentations and P&Ls.
I enjoy the pictures you paint. It made me think about what it would be like if we could somehow re-visit our past youthful years as an adult.
Thanks Jake!
“a ceaseless tugging,
stops…
or seems to.”
Love this.
Angela, Lois, and vajra2, thank you for ypur reactions. Your specific thoughts on church culture and nostalgia speak to me.
All those dads, busy with their endless church meetings. Hmmm, other perspectives are left out.
If anyone would like a delicious “steaming coffee cup,” I can provide you with a tasty brew. I bring the beans for Africa in my checked luggage and it is roasted in Provo. The beans are grown by subsistence farmers in the Rwenzori Mtns. All profits are used for Ugandan school projects. Unfortunately, it is not Church approved and may affect your TR (unless you have a generous Bishop).