by W.F. Lantry

          ”Quid vidisti in via?”
                    ~Wipon de Bourgogne

We walk in, barely late. The choir ends.
He’s got an apple, half consumed. She says
“He can’t eat that in here.” I hand it to
his brother, who’s embarrassed. For a while
all goes in peace. There’s song and sermon, then
the singer sits a moment with us all.

But soon she’s off, and he just can’t hold still.
I take him to the back: the crying room
where those as him are suffered. Once inside
he finds a door direct out to the sun.
Of all the things: he wants to climb a tree!
and from there points at birds: two mourning doves

along the walk, a starling gathering
straw for his nest. He flies up to the eaves.
A poor man near the church door asks for alms
but I have none. Those doves are flying past
the main door, where a woman staggers out.
She’s leaning on her mother. All around

uncles and brothers mill, concerned. A new
tree beckons while the ambulances come.
They bear the woman off. He says, “When I
am dead they’ll carry me away like that.”
He’s four years old. We go inside, but she
has driven on to sing another Mass.

 
W.F. LANTRY works inside the Beltway, but drives every night to the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River where his wife sometimes makes him take his five year old to Mass: “Victimae Paschali Laudes” actually happened exactly as described. During the present academic year his poems have been published in 11 separate and unique countries, including Texas, both in print and online. He currently serves as the Director of Academic Technology at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.