Читать книгу Benedict’s Daughter - Philip C. Kolin - Страница 12

Vespers

The Delta Between Sunset and Dark

At this holy hour, the Delta hinges

between the splendor of sunset

and the covetous reach of dark.

Cotton fields dress in Easter white—

brides processing down aisles,

ready to light their lamps, waiting

for the groom.

A cream-draped lotus offers

enticement to the evening air,

a bouquet of incense.

A young girl tells her cousin

about the infinite joy

she carries in her rounding womb.

Lilies drift across the flat, long land

into their silhouettes.

At nightfall the soft

side of sorrow seeps in—

a mother stands alone

beside the body of her lynched son

keening, the melody of grief

picked up by the moanful refrain

of the blues from the clapboard church

across the road.

Through the stained glass windows

the candles look like sunsets.