"A wordless shape-note singing..."

This poem is dedicated to Jennifer who wrote a comment on my post the idea of how mixtapes will save poetry. She asked me if I knew of any living Catholic poets and I wanted to record a poem by one that I knew personally.

Sally Thomas is a Catholic poet and fiction writer. This poem is the first one in her collection, Motherland (Able Muse Press). Her novel Works of Mercy (Wiseblood Books) is newly available on Kindle.

Change-Ringing
By Sally Thomas

You remember church bells, mainly, 
A wordless shape-note singing
On the sky. Nightly, Daily,
As the baby fed, their ringing

Echoed the rhythm of the sigh
And suck, the lashes fluttering
On the flushed cheek. You try
To sort through images cluttering

Your mind’s dark attic, and 
That’s what you come up with: bells.
Not your baby's fisted hand, 
His warm and varied smells, 

His wandering slate-blue gaze, 
The dampness of his hair. 
What you find are clanging day
And midnights in some chair, 

Half-dreaming, while that clamor
Wavered the windowpane. 
Caught by the memory’s glamor, 
You nod in your chair again,

And nurse this living weight
Your heart's received. What of it?
Recalling bells in the twilight,
Distractedly you love it. 

Thank you for listening!

Photo credit: Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash