Wisconsin Barn, Sunday Morning They are talking about the Church of Saint John Coltrane on NPR. You wouldn’t like how they play A Love Supreme in the background Like crickets, like atmosphere. I stop at the barn on the way back from getting the paper, Roll down the window, watch the flycatcher sit on the wire, dart along the roof, Come back again. After you died we took your Coltrane collection to the public library. I had never heard Saint John and yet somehow I knew I knew if we had dropped the box In the middle of the street, there would have been no stopping the music, ever, Ever. We have been to church. Light in the indigo riffs on the Epistle Makes psalms out of milkweed, makes this waste place A parable. If there is an old barn somewhere in Coltrane any sun-loved red elegance Any steel roof elated with light, any timbered vault like a cathedral where The Irrepressible slides in sideways through every hallowed interval Hides you, surprises you, well you would know. Somewhere at the Church of Saint John they are exalting in God. A sax gives the sermon the flycatcher stitches A benediction in the bright air You would understand.
Melaney Poli is an artist, writer, and Episcopalian nun. She is the author of the accidental book of poems You Teach Me Light: Slightly Dangerous Poems and an accidental novel, Playing a Part.
Amethyst Review 