by Lawrence Hopperton
1. Private Chapel Picture someone like a pope in prayer, a tiny chapel. Altar servers murmur latin robes raised in personal praise. We did that in choir school. We recited the responses didn’t know what they meant but could participate at the feet of the meditative moment. 2. Morning Prayer Summer Sunday shine sweat to the porch doors, to the narthex greeting friends. Where is the priest, the process? Hymns with bits of choir scattered through the congregation chanting in old-style: prayer and readings, a sermon partially scripted testimonies our chosen chants in thin alto we answer with summer and the organ plays us out side the sanctuary. We linger. We talk together. 3. Morningsong Spiders seek boundaries transitions tether and triangulate structure grow gossamer cathedral forests with sunscreen and naps swim to the island and back. Search for wood. Cut the length and stomp it. I will teach you to tinder and kindle with games and saw stories rouse tomorrow with morning song perhaps this one. 4. First Sunday after Covid Capacity is limited to 25 percent and the sacristy is as full as that. Livestream works. The piano prelude picks up well. Our pastor processes to a soloist, a cantor waiting for her time at a distant peace. Prayer and real people to respond to this first communion. The chalice is re-silvered. Isolation ends with sanitizer space between pews. We are one voice humming through masks. It’s good to praise with people.
Lawrence Hopperton lives in Stouffville Ontario. His first chapbook, Songs of Orkney and Other Poems was published by SWOP press in 1983, and his second chapbook, Ptolley Bay, published by Lyrical Myrical Press 2013. His first full collection, Table for Three, was published by En Route Books and Media in 2021, and his next collection, Such Common Stories will appear in late 2022 from En Route Books.