Benediction at a beginning

Each year the house was solemnly blessed
with colored chalk on the door jamb and header,
a bloodless script to set this dwelling apart.

In the bleak midwinter a large candle of beeswax
was left lighted on the front window sill as a
beacon for others in the footsteps of the Posada.

In this ordinariness were also folio pages of a
paper Bible taped to the glass, not as elegant
as a Gutenberg in a museum’s showcase that

had its pages in both volumes turned every day,
but bright with devotion as our prayers rose up
and fell like angels on an extended work ladder.

Daily prayers were repeated so quickly, one after
another, that some would think it was arcane gibberish,
but it was instead a shibboleth test of the true heart.

Some of the wealthy and even libraries cut out the
richly illuminated head letters from broken books,
sold as individual pages to increase profits in sales.

Outside in this orderly suburban neighborhood
no one thinks they need to find a place of safety,
and no effort is required to find their daily bread.

But I am the one neighbor who lights a bright candle
that flickers and then moves it toward the window
while I draw back the curtains as a new day begins.

--
Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who taught classes on the history of Christianity and on global religions for almost forty years. He lives now in a small village that is near a nature conservancy, a green cemetery and Amish farms.