Erin

It has been twenty-one years
since sadness seized me.

By another
twenty-one years
time will have emptied
the waste baskets
of my being.

Out of duty
I write sermons
to pass on to others,
in hopes they can find
value in them.

Might prove valuable,
noticeable in creature genius,
by shear depth of woe,
might jolt an approval,
so many beings can continue
to the spiritual.

And, then again
I grew up in this church
and was a child here
more than once
because I was born again here.

I suppose it could be worse
that my last sermon preempted
your death ... but I too find no more
to write about,
or read about,
or even to believe in.


Patrick Darnell (1977)