BELLS ON CHRISTMAS EVE
Long drive to worship last night.
Dad and Father Hopkins in my head.
Roads dark, icy. I tell Karen
how the bells lift me up.
I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t ringing bells.
Bells ringing—and then she rings the bells.
Do you know Fr. Hopkins’ poem, Nondum?
We’re early so bell ringers
can practice and I sit close in the pew.
I’ve brought my notebook
and the poems of Father Hopkins
opening by chance to Nondum
with an epigraph from Isaiah,
Verily Thou art a God that hideth Thyself.
We read our psalms but get
no answer back. Bells are ringing now,
and Starla comes over to say hello.
She asks me how I’m doing
and I say, Thank God for the bells,
to which she, a bell ringer, says, Amen.
Her mother gave these bells to us.
Father Hopkins, I echo your poem.
My prayer seems lost in desert ways.
A woman tells me I’m reading the lessons tonight.
I’m off by a night. I thought I was reading at Christmas.
Reading for a service that doesn’t exist.
As we drive in the dark, I think,
I’m learning to make reports in the Notebook.
The choir is ringing a Ukrainian Bell Carol.
These reports to God. I’m learning.
They’re just reports. Daily reports.
I thank my dad for this, remembering
when he was sick. I learned how to report all of it
without wincing. You never got to see that, Dad.
After the bells ring,
I get to stand up and read from Isaiah,
For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned.
Karen’s place is in the front row on the left.
I take a picture of the choir and of Bart at the piano.
Bells ringing, they lift this line from Father Hopkins,
Yet know not how our gifts to bring.
Jim Bodeen
24 December 2022
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