SUNDAY SERVICE — Alonzo Gibbs

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