Praise Song on a Summer Night
She stood in front of the congregation dress as flat and straight as an ironing board touching the floor. Her arms were wooden crosses driven into the mound of a grave and gravely she said her nephew, a teenager, was dead so prayers please for the family, herself, and her husband. "But this," she said, "is a praise song." Her voice rung in the rafters where the wasps gathered around the low hanging lights and we couldn't help but look up, up although there was nothing up but the deep-stained crossbeams, the crisp white ceiling. Some closed their eyes and smiled, some clasped their hands and rocked slightly; some hummed low. The earth shook that night; the stars fell like tears. In the parking lot, the attendant reached into his pocket, jingled the cool keys, and, running his thumb over their jagged edges, sighed and thought of home.
--Mary Ann Honaker
Mary Ann Honaker holds a BA in philosophy from West Virginia University and a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. She has previously published poetry in Harvard’s The Dudley Review and Crawlspace of Cambridge, Massachusetts. In her writings she primarily explores the transformative power of love and the intersection of the spiritual world with mundane reality.
