sunday – a poem by Zapoura Newton-Calvert

sunday

i leave the house 
walking 
to feel my
heady, hypnotic
heart – 

river fog
is thick incense
a band across the trees
filled with the sound 
of mourning doves

soul,
holy,
whole 

i recite street names
 – a prayer
pause at each untamed trillium
– a rosary
and hear a house finch singing

each birch i pass
is hymnals 
lined with lichen

this watery street corner chalice,
the baptismal rain on my face,
  clothes soaked
with sky and sweat.  

the bridge altar
the forest cathedral
my reflection in the river
a deity worth worship

sheltering under thuja plicata,
i drink its breath,
   tasting smoky resin.

peace be with you

and also with you

i am home

Zapoura Newton-Calvert is a poet and professor at Portland State University and the founder of Reading Is Resistance, a community organization supporting social justice capacity building in children and their families through shared picture book reading. Her work has appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily.