Читать книгу At the Great Door of Morning - Robert Hedin - Страница 11

Bells

for M.L., killed in Vietnam

I remember it was 1965, the summer

I was put in charge

of the bells. Above me

and high up, they waited

like thunderheads at the top

of the First Presbyterian Church.

And so each Sunday I would pull,

and down out of that dark

ringing would fall,

like flecks of glittering mica,

dead moths, flies, and the small

luminous bones of bats.

But most of all it was dust.

And all summer with the sun

high in its arc,

and the heat building slowly

by degrees, I rose, lifted

by that long bell rope,

and, swinging there, would pull

the dust down, like light,

over the bowed, sleeping Bibles.