A poem by Jim Culleny:
Slovak women in black; black babushkas; Slovak men in black; black fedoras –and black beads flowing through fingers like prayers past fluttering lips:
Svätá Mária, Matka Božia, pros za nás hriešnych teraz i v hodinu smrti našej,.Amen
The Byzantine proscenium lit white and gold in it’s bounding box of incense and incantations,
priests and altar boys shift here and there; they bend and turn making signs with graceful hands.Dancing like candle wicks,
but precise and cool,
they scratch an itch,
the blessed sacrament.And grandpa in his stone cathedral, granite-hard and hoary;
and big-bosomed grandma, her eternal rosary;
and Sunday is very far away.