CAROL EDELSTEIN
THE WAY I CHOOSE TO WORSHIP
is on my back under the tall pines and birches.
Here in my sanctuary. My words to You
nothing special--what I’ve had for lunch,
who came to the feeder today,
a list of clouds drifting by;
this wound, that triumph;
snippets from the overheard--
all received with kind indifference.
I may as well be talking to myself.
I may as well be dreaming.
Once in a hallway I met a skinny cat
whose arched back and loud hiss signaled
threat and also fear. On waking I knew
my condition: mixed.
Forgiveness has to be a habit relentless as tides.
Asking, granting, asking, granting.
Daily as wind rocking the high branches.
And thus I lie down among trees.
For over twenty years, Carol Edelstein has been organizing a reading series in Northampton, Massachusetts
where she is an editor, social worker and one of the managers of a literary organization, The Gallery of Readers (www.galleryofreaders.org) She is the author of two books of poems, The World Is Round (Amherst Writers and
Artists Press, 1994) and The Disappearing Letters (Perugia Press, 2005). Her poetry and fiction have been widely
published, most recently in upstreet, The Georgia Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review.