The First and Last Poems From Every Tender Reed

Salt-Water Church

The salt-water Atlantic lies over that ridge.
I am here to soak in the sea—
to wash my body & cleanse my soul.

I walk toward water’s edge,
flip-flops in hand. I dip one toe in.
Earth has become a place

that takes so much and gives so little
back, yet I remember the beach
from Sunday School. A beach was

the sight of Jesus’s last fish fry—
the one after He hung from the cross,
where he cried the loneliest cry in the world.

**

In Solitude

The beach is dark
with ever-darkening shadows.
Portentous rocks
jut from the shore.
No one else is on the beach.

A new moon in a cloudy sky
over a churning ocean,
incoming waves stretch viscid fingers
as the tide brings water to shore.
Inconstant moonlight
becomes an unlikely candle for prayer.

I feel a few shells land near me
but cannot see where sea creatures are
nor the shallow water-basins
the tide-force creates
for them to swim in.

The church bell in the nearby beach town
has lost its clapper. No message of hope
rings out on the night my pain is
unthinkably strong.

Voices in my head drown out the rational.
Duels of dialogue drive me beyond the pale.
My mind full of cacophony, I
overthink almost everything,
forget that thought differs from sin.
I never know when temptation comes.

Only the holy priests bring me joy
through the sacraments,
before I ask the Holy Spirit
for peace and remembrance of many truths
which I’ve already learned.

My real test is a simple question
the darkness cannot quell.
“Who do you say I am?”
follows me “from faith to faith.”
My answer, once again, is
pivotal, personal, and absolutely necessary.

Then the peace of God washes me
like baptismal waters, and I am not alone
though I walk the beach in solitude.
I am not alone, and I never was.

**

"Salt-Water Church" was first published in Rusty Truck. “In Solitude” was in Every Tender Reed (Main Street Rag, 2016).
Poems reprinted by permission of the author.