CHARLES WRIGHT

The Gospel According to Somebody Else

Comfort them all, Lord, comfort their odd shapes                                        
                                                                              and their standard hair.
They seem so hand-haunted, so hymn-hewn,
In their slow drift toward received form.
Comfort them standing there,
                                                then comfort them sitting down—

God knows his own, the old have no tears,
The thickness of winter clouds is the thickness of what’s to come.