Category: Liturgy
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3003: The Six Liturgy
Liturgy for the Paddle Wheel — where old and new collide I. The Animal of Iron and BreathIt came up the Rhône like a great beast learning to speak.Pistons for lungs, smoke for voice,paddle wheels striking the waterwith the rhythm of a heart that never tires. We stood on the bank and watched it approach,this…
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2303: The Liturgy
Liturgy for the Confluence(where two rivers meet and the world does not) I. The MeetingThey do not ask permission, these waters:the Saône, thick with silt,the Rhône, clear and urgent,driving south. At the narrow tip of landthey arrive still separate,dark and light,slow and swift, then lean togetherand go on. No treaty.No vow.Only force. II. The SurfaceFrom…
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1603: The Liturgy
Liturgy for the Confluence of All Things(for Lyon, where the rivers join and the age does not) I. The Place Where Waters Meet Here the Saône loosens its dark bodyinto the clearer Rhône. No treaty.No argument. Brown water takes green.Green water takes brown. They braid,shoulder to shoulder,and go on. Brigid watches the seamwhere difference disappears.…
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0903: The Liturgy
Liturgy for the Weaving City(for Lyon, 1834, where silk and blood ran together) I. The DeclarationThis is not riot.This is declaration. Men, women, children —children thin as breath,tear-streaked, sharp-elbowed,forcing through the crowdfor one lungful of air,one moment of being countedamong the living. They carry no weapons.They carry themselves: hollow cheeks,empty hands,that terrible refusalto die quietly.…
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0203: The Looms Liturgy
Liturgy for the Looms That Never Stop(Lyon, 1834, where silk costs more than children) I. The Sound That Never EndsIt begins before dawn and continues after.The clack clack clack of wooden shuttlesthrowing thread, catching thread,weaving fabric that will never warmthe hands that made it. All day. All night. Every day.The looms do not rest.They cannot…
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2302: The Liturgy of Light
Part 3, Liturgy for the Light That Was Not Ours(One border that’s only another) I. The Carriage as CrucibleThe wheels sang agony in vowels.Every jolt a verdict, every rut a reckoning.We counted time by froth at the horses’ mouths,in the shudder of their ribs.Safety was Lyon, we whispered to ourselves,the lie turning prayer by repetition.…
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1602: The Liturgy
Liturgy for Those Who Burned Their Names to Stay Alive(for the ones who fled too late) I. The First Mistake of BelievingYou thought the river would wash you clean.You thought the new tonguewould taste sweeter in your mouth. That the accent you couldn’t shedwould be mistaken for poetry,not origin. But fear travels without papers.It crossed…
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0902: The Liturgy
Liturgy for the Provisional Passport (a hymn for the unmoored and ink-stamped, waiting) I. The Arrival Without WelcomeThe quay,it tolerates you.Coal-smoke and old salt.A lamp hissing in the rainan unwilling guard.You step from the paddle-wheeler’s pitchonto stone that has forgotten how to welcome.This is not a border crossed,but a threshold endured. II. The Surrender of…
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0202: Liturgy of Unmasking of a Beach
Liturgy: The Unmasking of a Beach (Or: Where Water Meets the Wound) Note: This week, I am trying something completely different with my Six. Not a six sentence story (as usual) but the (anthropomorphic) psychological effects of storm-driven tides on a local beach. I. The Withdrawal of the SeaThe tide does not come to cleanse.It…
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2601: The Liturgy for the Watching People
Liturgy for the Window Vigil I. The Geometry of WitnessingA window is a frame.Not for art,but for the ordinary.We think we are looking out,but we are really looking in. Into the small, sudden theatre of endings.Where medics close a defibrillatorlike a book whose final lineno one wants to read aloud. II. Of DistanceWhat we see…
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