Together In The Moment

Together In The Moment

In the stark sanctuary of a Baptist church

in a back row, far from the grouted tiles

and grated drain of the baptismal pool I first

practiced the seventh element of the noble

eightfold path to Buddhist enlightenment,

mindful of the moment, aware of the pinched

expressions on the faces of the foxes that

tipped the ends of the stole draped around

the shoulders of the woman in front of me,

a look of sour disapproval that, in my

heightened state, I could detect on the

faces of more than a few in the choir loft

perched high above the congregation

arrayed in ranks of short grained wooden

pews that concealed a surprising number

of discarded lumps of gum, hardened Braille

my fingers read without comprehension. 

Perhaps the Beechnut Rosetta Stone stood

hidden among the hymnals in the neat racks

at knee level where I stashed that week’s church

bulletin after I had finished the disciple word

search and mentally checked the figures of last

weeks receipts against the week before that,

rounding up in a spirit of New Testament generosity. 

Watching my breath was easier said than done

as everyone around me, one by one, picked up the

rhythm and the melody of the hymn in progress and

I would catch myself watching you, trying to isolate

your voice, determine whether you were really

singing or practicing your own version of mindfulness,

a breach in discipline that no doubt accounts

for the association I came to make with you

and the hymn I Come To The Garden Alone,

a favorite of mine if only for the memory of the

sound of your voice half humming the tune in

our living room, absent a beginning or end and

most of the words save for while the dew is still

on the roses and the voice I hear as I tarry there,

delivered in your peculiar grainy tenor.  Maybe

this helps explain why I requested that hymn be

sung at the church before we left for the short,

perfunctory memorial at Bushnell and my sudden

rage when, instead, they played a hopped up 
recorded version on a dirty cassette ejected at the 
last minute from the tape deck of the music directors

Bonneville, a feeling incompatible with mindfulness,

a roiling muddy river that swirled around us, waist

deep, baptized, drenched to the bone.