Weary Worry

As I have been consummed with work and a phone that never stays quiet for very long during the summer months, I forget who I am and go back to old ways of worry.  This poem and it's words found me, articulating a need that I was too busy to notice.

I came to Mass today
To hide in Latin words
And smell the dust of ritual. 
I came for sanctuary
Where the powerful and poor
Together kneel
And unstoppable time
Holds still
Like a snapshot in the eye of God.
I came to a place without lessons,
Where no one is distilling truth
Like Tennessee Whiskey.
I came to float like a flower
In a Japanese pool.
I came
For the veins under my skin
To swell like the virgin in Nazareth
And burst wine.
I came for something
You cannot get over the counter.
I came because justice
Will not happen before cocktails.
I came because my child's cold
Did not gather in her chest
Like a summer storm
I came
Because in my nightmare chases
I wake to sweat
The moment before capture.
I came
Because I want it to be true
That I will go in peace
When this Mass is ended.

John Shea