Double Cinquain by Annmarie Lockhart (Appeared in the January 2010 Issue) Your hat and my blue scarf: Everyone but you knew it could only last a minute or two. Tick, tock, Grand Central clock: Time’s up. But you wrote me the most gorgeous poem and I lost it.
by Annmarie Lockhart (Appeared in the January 2010 Issue) Two facts crossed my mind as I considered the breakup: I was eighteen weeks pregnant and I had just discovered I was carrying twins. The timing of this left a lot to be desired. But breakups, like all forms of death, don’t operate on conventional timetables. There was really no way around it. I figured it was for the best and I’d survive. And although that meant I’d need to relocate in a manner of speaking, how hard could it be to find another Episcopal church to call home in the Diocese of Newark? I had a five-year love affair with this beautiful little church, the first church of my adult faith. I’d found my way to it in a nor’easter one Sunday when I woke from a decade-long agnostic nap to a sudden inexplicable need to bring my infant to religion. I threw myself into this relationship with the ardor of a new romantic. I loved its progressive politics, its open liturgy, its need for my energy. My passion for it showed no signs of abating and I couldn't imagine wanting another. It was only in that fifth year that things took a turn. The priest left and the church entered a transition period. Suddenly I found myself not invited to planning meetings and prayer circles. The new order brought with it new traditions, but my friends were now denied their customary roles in the service and the words of collective prayer fractured into distinct voices. For the newly engaged parishioners it was a time to consider faith commitments and to celebrate their new love. For me it was a time to consider displaced affection and to struggle with betrayal, loss, and grief. Two days after discovering I was carrying twins, I cried as the new priest led the congregation through a formal service to sever the pastoral relationship with its former ministers. I wondered why I was being called to census now and where I would find a manger in which to lay my babies. So I approached the altar a few Sundays later after communion and asked the priest and the congregation to bless my pregnancy and the babies they would never baptize who were to be born of it. I walked out of church that day never again to walk back in the doors as a parishioner. Of course a breakup doesn't always mean no contact ever again. Chance encounters happen; news/gossip travels far and fast. I've kept in touch with some former fellow parishioners. I went back for a funeral. I met with the rector to initiate a formal peacemaking and a kind of ritual forgiveness. It was good for me and I hope it was good for him too. The split turned out to be amicable. It took some time, but I finally found the right manger in which to lay my infants. In a lovely Byzantine-styled church tucked where I least expected to find it under the star of Park Avenue gold, all manner of God’s people attended the welcoming of my children into the body of Christ. This is not first love, not innocent and unknowing, but it is a deep love, complete with infatuation for the beauty and devotion to the quirks of the beloved. I’m completely committed to this second love. At least for now. What I may be called to tomorrow is anybody’s guess.
|
