No Less Holy

An old guitar wails in the background.
The singer’s voice is gravel, low and rough.
Sipping coffee in the diner on a snow-covered Sunday,
hardly a soul there.

You ponder. Stare into space.
Happy with the weather. The snow-lined limbs
and icy roads white spider cracks
in the landscape.

It is the season of cold.
It comes early here. And lasts.
Strangely, it did not take long to adjust.
Coming from a cold season of your own soul,
it felt natural. Still does

even if your soul has found warmth
in unexpected places.
Nothing according to plan
and somehow far better,
You have a place to be.
Safe in your contradictory strangenesses.
By some, even loved for it.

It is a new experience, that.
Something beyond grace.
And it is now, in the ice covered place
you live, that you have the time to stop
and be grateful. Here in your gravel-voiced diner,
farm fresh eggs and coffee to the side,
a different kind of worship,
but no less holy than the halls of the church
you frequent each Sunday.

About this poem

We all have our holy spaces. Home perhaps. Outdoors. In the arms of our lovers or our children. Anywhere will do when the heart is right.

The picture is of the church I pastor. I had used a shot of my favorite diner just a day or two ago, so I chose this one, which is also one of my holy places.

Tom