Gaudete Sunday with Young Genghis Khans in Training - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Gaudete Sunday with Young Genghis Khans in Training

How difficult to rejoice when one hears
That those relatives against whose predations
Dead-bolts have been fitted on every door
Are visiting for Christmas after all

Let us rejoice that the nephews who pick locks
And break the windows in the garden shed
And ride the patio doors off their hinges
And pocket pewter chessmen for their play

Will be with us merrily once more
With their mothers – ‘tis the season to abhor

An Older Liturgy for Vespers - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

An Older Liturgy for Vespers

The Vestal hearth is now a microwave
No mysteries or flames within it glow;
The kitchen table now is the altar, set
With old familial Lares and Penates:

Pepper and salt shakers of dime-store design
Flanked by a tray of paper napkins which
The children simply will not use, a spoon,
A morning coffee cup not put away

Even so -

When the mill whistle blows, and school lets out
An ancient liturgy will be renewed