Elements
a poem in four parts for Father Bill Wieland
and his wife Lucy upon their retirement from Saint Andrew’s
written by Joe with the help of the congregation of St. Andrew’s, particularly, Deb, Carl, Martha, C.J., Allison, Marthe, Junelle, Gloria, Warren, Emily, Dennis, Theresa, Sue, Dave, Gwen, Narda, Page, Deb, and Joyce.
Fire
The soft shush of a gurney down the long hall—antiseptic,
low lit— against the murmur of nurses in the sleepy night
and Bill’s low tremble, the almost stutter of kind words,
Lucy’s face glows under the dim florescence
like some round symbol for kindness or patience
or both. How many have witnessed these two ordinary
people in this scene with the suffering child, a father
taking his few last breaths, or even themselves staring
through the fog of anesthesia at the good father’s collar,
his wife’s crystal eyes? Father Bill and Lucy called
into the cold night to help us cope with the incomprehensible
dark by bringing God’s simple quiet light.
Water
Father Bill’s fingers unscrew the shaky cap
of a plastic bottle of holy water. Then his voice
cuts through and spreads around the room like a swollen river
over its banks. An infant’s head now awash,
cleansed, or your head or mine
or my child’s or yours baptized by these hands,
these words of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The river travels across the land and carries
the dirt of a thousand counties
into the sea, so goes the pastor’s life, touching
the mother after she’s given birth to the infant girl,
baptizing the girl before the congregation,
pinching his fingers below the water the girl,
now an acolyte, pours onto his hands,
lifting those hands over the girl at her wedding,
handing her a cup of coffee when trouble comes,
blessing her household pets, baptizing her children.
Air
This is what holds our music, his voice
booming out a hymn, a song, a sermon, Lucy
in the fifth pew on the left, chin cocked
toward her husband, or at a round table
as he works the stage working his way
through Big Bad Brother Bob “Bubba” Bottoms
or some other strange soliloquy, soldiering
on into the spaces he occupies
with his mouth, his bass harmonies,
his Keilloresgue conversational quips
and asides. This is the air he makes
for anyone, even Marthe Chandler , making
St. Andrew’s, she says, the only church
in town where atheists are welcome,
pressing his hands together, flashing
his impish smile, welcoming anyone
even the bright-faced Mormon boys
sent to him as a joke by Ernie Ford,
God rest his soul, an unbeliever too,
or believer in life like Bill, believer
in living in any old air, the stagnant,
pungent air of age, the sweet
whiffs from the new born, the dusty
lamplit air of the stage, the waxy air
of the Easter vigil and late on Christmas eve
when we’re whispering silent night
as snow falls in the icy air outside.
Earth
Butch, the horse, relieves himself while Father Bill
gives him the blessing, then there’s Newt
and Nellie, a few hundred cats, even his own
cat scratching him on his outstretched arm,
dogs, rabbits, a whole ark-full over the years
floating into the arms of God. Beside the lake
under the shade we pass a ball
like an erratic earth bouncing across space
and share our words like little earths themselves
orbiting around the priest who stands,
sweating, delighted as the sun. And out
of the earth its food, the cherries
for cherry pie, the wheat for its crust
and the bread we break. Out of the earth
Lucy, the Iowa farm girl, the circle
of dances she learned as a child, the sheep
that made the wool she knits into a blanket
for Charlie, born on June 8th, the same date
as she. And let’s not forget who Bill and Lucy
have helped back into the earth,
the ashes and dust of us, the husbands
and sons of us, the daughters and mothers
and wives of us. Even our pets, the spade of Bill,
the hoe of Lucy’s presence calling God
to a hole we’ve made in the earth, asking God
to make a garden of what we’ve put there.
Joseph Heithaus
June 12, 2011
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