Sunday Song

It isn’t mine to sing though

the singing isn’t stealing,

the song picks its own

team, not just the sparrows 

chittering in the pines,

not just the dogs

raising hell at the neighbors 

shuffling down the driveway like

lords of the earth, haughty about

the home. Our voices raised

like the shock of defeat,

raised like the baffled revenants 

beneath some Christ-y craft or

muddled magics, we sing

down the crisp leaves, we low

the bright out of the sky

sad machines that function with

all due gravity and the green that’s gone.

But the sky is blue and the black 

crows choose their riots amid

the clamor of cars crunching leaves,

the late flies, the blinding sun

bowing on its way out.

We sing and sing

wash us clean, love us true

our Sunday song loud and strong,

hand after empty hand, the long day 

lost as I sing and sing.