How do I begin to write about the church whose
ending was the beginning of this writing?
St. Francis
brittle pamphlet
Inside a parish history published for its 50th
anniversary in 1949, my grandfather’s name
appears on the inside cover, written in what looks
like my mother’s hand.
a jubilee year
from the Latin
to shout for joy
A man named Francis I never met.
A book I took years ago from my mother’s
credenza, from the Italian for belief.
Its pages flake as I turn them.
It took a lot of fundraising to raise the church.
Wage-earning families were urged to fund a lasting
memorial for their children’s children, for the
thousands yet unborn.
to take shape
in a place
of creeks rocks and weeds
here
in obedience they said
here to be pure
and honest
here to give your life
to this work
in an age that needs
your example
In Assisi, Francis spent money with lavish hand
until he met the lepers and built his house of reeds.
Clare joined him in his mission. They called her a
princess of poverty. My mother’s confirmation
name was Clare.
to confirm an initiation
it roots us more deeply
the name a protector and guide
After building a church, they built a school. The
pastor said he could always identify a Catholic-
schooled woman through the nobility and humility
of her bearing, through her desire to imitate the
violet — unseen, unheard, known only by its
fragrance.
to begin then with a nose
to perceive a smell
or else pry, search.
I remember a homeless woman with a ring of empty seats around her
wish her peace and get a stink on you
there
in the church where my mother and father were married
the church where they baptized their babies
where his coffin, but not hers, would be incensed
a thurible swings
a mist to lift prayer
to see a kind of faith
to follow
Another way to begin then is to say what I saw.
What I saw when I returned. When I returned to
the church after many years away. To see it on the
day that it was ending.
windows
the work of an Irishman
who drew the faces of his ancestors into the glass
all their long faces and fingers and toes
names
a bulletin board for those who served in the war
each letter a pin
asterisk marks a death a war
that gave work to those fleeing a fever, that
flu
in the South that drove people here, to this
place where the people they’d work for
would fly away.
birds
eagle for a lectern
peacock for a painting
a Jesus all wing and red flame
A man who said: before the war, no one had ever left here,
but after seeing the world in war, we had to see more, so we moved
away.
A girl who said: my father was taken from me, he’s in prison,
so this church has been really important to me.
the weight
of so much
unsaid
To begin then with an incomplete recounting.
Another way to begin is to keep going.
It’s two years after the church’s closing and I’m in
the archives. It’s the day before my mother’s
birthday, the first one since her passing.
she who repeated
you don’t have to like
everyone
but you do
have to love them
a sentiment of kindness
or dilemma
In a box of ephemera, I find a photo album from
the church’s 100th anniversary labeled “A Welcome
Back Mass.”
the women my mother drank coffee with
the men who went off to war
At the very end there’s a picture of the church on an
empty corner. The way a corner looks after people
have left it. No, that’s not right. The way it looks
when those who remain are inside. Like my mother.
Who didn’t need to be welcomed back, who
remained. For years. With the neighbors whose
practice was living and a faith grown strong in
repeating.
completely living her everyday living
for her husband whose heart broke from working
and her children who left handprints down the wall
It’s two years after the church’s closing, and I’m in
the archives. I find a yearbook from 1934, my
father’s junior class, and a description of a school
play, in which one student played “a darkie boy
with remarkable facility.”
beyond this dusty room
in the streets of a new century
people are chanting
don’t shoot
It’s two years after the church’s closing, and I’m in
the archives. I find annual reports tracking the
numbers of people in the parish. How many were
baptized or married or died. How many people in
1957 are “colored.” And how many are “Negro.”
For years. For years, they asked how many, how
many, until 1983 when they ask how many of the
people are “Black.” Annual reports that ask in 1967
have you talked to your people about fair housing,
have you talked to your people about racial justice.
Questions they ask the next year and then stop.
to document
another form of beginning
It’s two years after the church’s closing, and I’m in
the archives. I find pamphlets from the 60s full of
advice for parents. A warning against the use of
racial epithets. It says don’t turn slurs into the air
your children breathe.
months later or decades
people are screaming
we can’t breathe
In this room full of dust I can taste it — the gleanings
and failures of an archive, and those of the people
I come from, who I’m coming to know
through all they held on to and all they let go.
After the church closed, the man who learned to
make stained glass from the son of the man who
made the church windows removed them from the
church piece by piece. Only then did he notice that
a saint’s legs were upside down.
pelvis for ankle
red sash interrupted
He said:
It can be difficult for a maker to see the whole when
focusing on its pieces.
fragile scrapbook
a cigar box full of medals
He said:
It can be difficult for a maker to admit mistakes
after completing the whole.
I look down to touch them:
the rust on my shirt
the dirt under all of my nails
