Jété

Elected windward priests - faithful children, disillusioned -  bid their congregants pray. - J. T. Tench

Jété
Church of the Immaculate Conception, Mayreau Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Photographed by Thasha Ollivierre. Used as a hurricane shelter during the passage of Hurricane Beryl.

Elected windward priests -
faithful children, disillusioned - 
bid their congregants pray.

We gather on pews in living rooms
and return to the Old Bible, searching.
Our God said to name things - 
creatures of air and sea. 

Fault of our original sin,
We call a westward-marching
creature by name and nature:

Beryl:
Peace Be Still!
My power from Adam,
his power from God,
We have dominion!

Prayer precipitates in 
shackled huts. 

But Beryl
atheist born of both sea and air
flattens all but the sky.

She ensnares shacks into
a wicked quadrille - turns,
twists, dips, pulling them
close to chest -

then, after a dialogue of
exchanged breaths and
an intimacy of eyes,
hurls them off the dancefloor.

Somewhere, church walls are broken.