Scaled Back

We made the trip to the little bookstore in Yellow Springs that had been derailed previously by illness.

I sold five sets of my chapbooks to the little bookstore outright, not consignment. It's a tiny bit of money but still it's words going out into the world and making a little money. Such a quick, easy, kind-hearted transaction, I couldn't be more grateful!! Honestly, how rare is that?!

I gave the owner a set of the chapbooks for herself and read aloud to her the excerpt printed on the back of the newest one. "It's like a liturgy," she said and asked if I was a minister, if I had a church.

"Well," I said, " the writing can be liturgical but also deeply irreverent."

"When I shelve them, should I put them in poetry?"

I said, "Sure," before adding, "and 'Gay Studies'

She made eye contact.

"It's all that and a lotta God’s grace," I shrugged.

I texted a dear friend, who's in London right now, to tell her this, she texted back,

"You do have a church,” she said, “It's called life, I'm in your congregation fo'shua!”

As the warm rush of gratitude settled in me, I thought that what she had said, the Friend and Dragon Slayer, slaying sage wisdom-like-Gospel again, is the essence, isn't it, to see this as our church, our forest cathedral, temple, synagogue, and shrine, and each other as congregation, community, sangha, and tribe.

-pdk