Stay put!

Today was clergy quiet day at the Morton Arboretum.  We sang and prayed and participated in a whole-group version of lectio divina of our ordination vows.  It is clear to me that I am being told to Stay put.  It reminds me of being a child and talking at night with my brother and sister in the top floor of the boathouse.  There was a one-way intercom so my father and mother could hear us in the cabin.  My father would stand at the top of the hill and shout: Pipe down.  This has the same commanding tone: Stay put.  Where?  I think.  How?  I think.  Couldn*t you ask more nicely?

The woman on the bike

Finds me staring at a robin.

I cannot determine whether

The bird has found a worm

Or perhaps a piece of nest material.

She motions me over,

Asks what is happening.

I tell her it is a clergy quiet day.

She puts her finger to her lips

Shh!

And reads my name tag.

Oh, Episcopal !

She says.

She even pronounces it correctly.

I won*t say another word!

I tell her it*s ok,

There*s a difference between quiet

And silent.

She lived next door to the man who died

Before Convention last year.

Her husband knows a colleague of mine.

Before the robin,

Before the woman,

In the quiet,

I was told

Stay put!

It seems to address a bigger notion

Than robins

Or women on bikes

Who know how to pronounce Episcopal.

I would like more clarity

Or maybe even

A nicer tone of voice.