Sunday morning sermons,
about the souls of the damned burning
in the lake of fire, seemed to a child
like the deeper truth
that made the sunshine streaming
through the tall windows a lie.
 
But Tuesday evenings brought the truth
I still live by; my mother put her coat
onto a pew and I lay down in the dark;
the only light in the church shone
on the choir. As they practiced,
their harmonies, like woven strands of love,
rose gently into the vastness of the night.