SUNDAY SERVICE                            

 The road
shaped to a slope
divides.

 Monhegan House, Trailing Yew,
Mrs. Cundy’s Cottage-
windows over
walls of darkened roses.

 We step from church
into our galaxy,
which here includes
the scattered lamps of town.
Our unspoiled night
can still declare God’s glory:
distant waves
sounding for all the world
like wind in spruce tops,
or wind in spruce tops,
sounding like the waves;
a smell of salt,
of drying fish-nets,
a sense of vast Atlantic reaches
under fixed or falling stars.

 With flashlights lit,
we find our ways,
in all directions,
home.

 Alonzo Gibbs