Graduation

Finally.  Finally.  I have graduated to the pew.  It took a full six years... but here I am.  Finally.  I do not need to do a thing to justify my pew-sitting.  No excuses necessary or called for.  Amazing, really.  Stunning.

I have graduated

To the pew.

It took me long enough.

Today at coffee hour

I straight-pinned green paper wads

As leaves

To brown styrofoam trees

For summer Vacation Bible School.

My beloved and I

Sat in the library

During the third service,

Waved to the people

Who slipped through the side door

Late.

We noted the man who filched the cream

From the kitcheonette refrigerator;

Perused the Sunday paper.

I have graduated to the pew,

The library,

To the edges

Of coffee hour.

I am no longer incognito clergy.

I am a regular.

I have graduated

Fully

Simply

To the pew.

Game change

I consider myself an unlikely candidate for the role of elder statesman.  Elder stateswoman?  Convention convinced me.  I am on a learning curve.

What is the female equivalent

Of elder statesman?

I*m it.

Somehow.

I do not know

When the transition happened.

Somehow

The game has changed.

I do not know the rules.

I do not know

The dress code.

I do not know

Where I sit

At the table:

The head

The foot

Or somewhere

In between.

Maybe I am

Under the table.

Carefully I consider

What happens

Underneath the conversation

Going on

Above me.

Role shift

I am getting better with the shift key, praise God.  Sometimes it doesn*t take more than a pinkie finger.

I have been stuck in the middle

Of a role shift.

Again I practice sitting long enough

To figure where the shift key

Lives.

Yesterday I watched the twisted gnarled tree

Out my office window,

Heard all about the butterfly garden

Planted on the corner

Of the church lot

Where the dead trees

Was removed this year.

I imagine the garden.

It is enough to clear my head.

I was stuck until I realized

My role

Has been in major flux.

Now there are different decisions

To make.

Some only require the pinkie

On either hand

To find the shift key,

Make the capital at the new beginning

Of the line,

Or even a Capital in the middle,

If required.