hymn
I was able to share this piece recently at a reading with Words Matter in Pensacola. It was written in memory of my dear friend Clarence Bell, a man who meant a great deal to me. a hymn bubbled up some years ago wholly unannounced, like a newspaper on the porch which hadn't been summoned hummed over and again completely involuntary like the soul'd sneezed and Clarence would ask before he died from whence it came to which the response was, "who knows?" and he'd laugh, and laugh eyes closed and mouth wide open maybe it stirred from the same place the redwood draws from as it reaches to the void perhaps it saunters in the same space where grace and despair come at one another or in the soft mist of breaking bread among new friends, while memory of an old friend makes way to our lips the hum calls the beloved home divining a way, amidst the so much beckoning laughter again from the departed blind saint at one small, if honest ans
