Communal

Note: If you want to comment on Ann’s poetry, I will copy and paste, just as you have written, into an email to her. Thank you. – Celia

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Rustle of anticipation

decorum-tamed in sacred space

could not contain

eager excitement as

children-like they waited watching

crowding in habitual place

sharing seats with former strangers

expectation now uniting.

The moment came and on the face

of each one present glowed a radiance

felt within and seen without

igniting new communal flame

non-consuming yet hope-glowing

in the destined still-to-be.

Unseen aureoles now formed

around the crowd as well as him who spoke

in new yet old familiar tongue

each falling rapt upon the ear

of all who in the hearing heard

the rush of holy breath and knew that

they were born again commensally.

Born of and with and then into

the Spirit of the One whose

once-begotten Spirit we all are.