Christine Potter
is head moderator at The Gazebo, an online poetry forum. Her first collection of poetry, Zero Degrees At First Light, is published by David Robert Books. Her work has appeared lately in The Pedestal, Stirring, WORM, and Noo.
Christine also hosts Cocktails With Chris, a free-form music show on Randoradio.com. She lives in a very old house on a creek with her organist/choirmaster husband, Ken, and two spoiled kitties, Desmond and Mollycat Jones. Mollycat, a strict formalist, publishes exclusively in Bumbershoot, Umbrella’s light verse ’zine .
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Half An Hour Before the Eleven O’ Clock Service,
St. Ann and The Holy Trinity, Brooklyn Heights
January 1, 2006
Holy gloom and the pipe organ’s impossible, endless
breath—blowers switched on, no music yet.
This first morning is dark. Two stories over the altar,
Jesus’ garments swirl in blue and ruby glass,
glowing like fanned coals. I try for prayer, then decide
to listen and not burden words. How can kiln-fired
sand catch such dun day and burn? The subway
speaks below, a slow mumble that shudders pews.
No answers there. Just this emptiness that is no
emptiness, this silence that is not silent; someone
laughs, blurred by distance and high ceilings
in the adjoining fellowship hall as he sets up coffee hour.
Is he the same man putting on a white vestment
to carry flame on the tip of a brass and wooden pole?
Now he lights the candles. Now comes the rest.
Electricity defines the familiar; bronze chandeliers,
sepia with age, snap out of the shadows. The organist
begins “In Dulce Jubilo.” Whatever whispered before,
whatever glittered on its own, either is or is not
part of the congregation shuffling to its feet
for the processional. Outside, their cheeks prickling
in the damp, people tuck sheaves of newspapers
under their arms, fingers circling cardboard cups of coffee,
their speech pale and visible before their lips.
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