In This Sanctuary

The oboist plays the prelude.

Her slow, solemn, solo widens

a crack in my broken heart.

Beneath lies a lava lake of sadness.

It is sliced open with a sharp pain from

 memories of thirty years in this Sanctuary:

My children's growth til graduation,

Wednesdays and Sundays in choir,

My first solo,

My in-laws' memorials,

My husband's memorial,

My children's baptisms,

My baptism.

In this Sanctuary,

 I found my faith,

and my own belovedness.

Unable to sing,

 I sit in a chair and listen.

My heart is splayed like a carcass for the grill.It's invisible ink- blood spurts on the church walls,

 and runs down unseen pooling on the floor.

When I walk, it covers the bottom of my shoes.My foot slides, as I grasp for the swaying tether to my faith;

while  the truth of my belovedness,

slips in and out of my searching hand.