Liturgy
by Judith Valente

The Virgina pine on my neighbor's lawn
    has been dying slowly for years,
        shedding its branches

the way my friend, Tillie, now seventy-nine,
    has begun giving away her teacups
        China plates and other possessions.

Still the pine stands, urges me to persevere
    amid the growl of a lawn mower,
        the scrape of a distant rake.

A young girl rides
    past on her bicycle, pedals toward a future
        already contracting.

A cardinal whistles.
    So much remains undone:
        letters to write, poems to finish,

the shopping, dusting, ironing,
    the thoughts still tangled,
        the apologies yet unspoken.

Coral bells gaze up at me,
    thirsting for a drink of water.
        The lilac bush beckons

with its saccharin scent.
    This too is liturgy, a singular
         moment of ichi-go ichi-e:

“One time, one meeting,”
    a call to forgive us our distractions,
        the rumor of something lasting, something holy.



 

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