LOVE STORY by Darnell Arnout
I first knew God in my child hands folded like a steeple,
my father’s voice a kind song lining out the Our Father
and Hail Mary, the Act of Contrition. I was three.
I held God in my hands like a bird and when my
hands opened, he bloomed into the Glory Be.
Later, I knew God in the rustle of black skirts and veils
and white wimples. The click and clatter of giant rosaries,
tethered crucifixes whipping through the air with the nuns’
sure stride, the weight of their steps in those black lace-up
shoes skimming worn wooden floors, their polished faces,
traces of white chalk on their fingers and on their sleeves,
the mystery of their holiness, their orders. I knew God
in the bright vestments, gold chalice, brass bells, Kyrie,
the host held high in the mystical Latin tongue of the Mass.
I knew God in the broken piece of wafer that rested
on my tongue, never to touch teeth, but to hold, protected
from the bite of hunger or eagerness, until there was nothing
left but the holy aftertaste of redemption and sacrifice.
I knew God in the stories of young girl saints who saw
visions, the mystical romance. I longed for a vision.
Gradually, I came to understand that God hides
in the questions we learn to ask. A better guide
than a polished face, a touch better than a name.
I knew God in the eyes of my children coming to me
like surprise letters, their bodies in pages holy and sacred
in their unfolding. Their artful penmanship, the baptism
of their inky words as they learned them, the sweet
sentences, their first steps syllables of their days,
their first wonder. My voice lining out their prayers,
the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be,
their hands holding God like a hummingbird’s
breath fluttering against their paired palms.
I know Heaven as a humming orchestra now
in mid-movement, God both conductor and cymbalist,
pushing and coaxing, punctuating and pacing,
and I am an instrument, one of many. I hear God
in the giggle and gasp, the trill and the trial, the song
and the screech, the slap and rub, the waltz
and shag, the rush and retreat. I catch a glimpse
of Him in the unfolding of what we all hold
in the church of our body, the hymn of our breath,
the Sabbath of this world of shadow and stars.
--
Darnell Arnoult, MFA, MA
Author and Creative Writing Instructor