Original: Greeting My Grandfather from Opposite Ends of the Church (2012)

Greeting My Grandfather from Opposite Ends of the Church

You sang with the Sunday choir,

Which means you sat without fail

At the front of the church

On display,

Somewhere between the pulpit

And the curtain covering the baptismal.

Ours was the third pew from the back.

Though we never owned it,

We staked a claim on it weekly –

Like students who chafe under assigned seating,

But given their freedom,

Return to the same desks every day.

This left a sanctuary between you and me,

All those parishioners

In sardine-can rows of pews

Separating us.

So, when instructed to rise

And greet our neighbors,

Yours was never a hand

I could shake.

The hearty “hellos”

And Sunday smiles

Weren’t built to span

More than a pair of pews,

Couldn’t reach someone

A congregation away.

But every week,

You’d greet me with a straight-backed salute,

And I would respond in kind. 

I would fix my gaze

Past the pulpit

And wait for your eyes

To fall on mine.

Then we’d share a “good morning,”

You and I,

That leapt over every stained-glass window.

I don’t know when the sight

Began seeping from your eyes –

If there were Sundays

When you couldn’t see the shape

And color of me,

But I know

You never missed a salute.

Did you turn, I wonder,

Toward the third pew from the back,

To where, unseeing,

You knew I would be,

And lift your hand to your brow,

Trusting I raised mine in reply?