March 18: Recording Poems, Andrea Scarpino, "Homily"

I was once more at the studio of the local Public Radio station this afternoon, this time to record some of my poems for National Poetry Month.  Sometimes when I read many of my poems in one sitting, they all sort of blend together for me, create one large poem.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.  I don't like the idea of writing the same poems over and over (although it worked for Walt Whitman).  It was a little disconcerting.

Anyway, I do have another Andrea Scarpino poem for you.  It's a moving little prose poem.

Saint Marty needs to stop obsessing about his poems this evening, or he's never going to get to sleep.

Homily

by:  Andrea Scarpino

Notre Dame de Paris, Christmas Day.  She didn't believe in God and yet, the smell of evergreen, of wooden pews, incense swung in metal balls.  Tourists walked the sides of the nave past paintings, glass.  She bought a pencil sketch, gargoyles spouting water from the eaves.  She didn't believe in God and yet, she saw awhile, edge of a pew, listened to the priests, mass in Latin, hymns in French.  Morning sun warmed the glass, the smell of evergreen.  On her knees, she lit a candle, prayed, believed, Keep my father safe.  Amen.

Where's a hunchback when you need him?