PIONEER

When I was eight or nine,

My mom told me about my ancestor

Who slept on top of a coffin

In a wagon on the trail

To the west.

Sometimes I think of her, lying on the wood in the dark.

Alone with only the dead to comfort her.

Alone with only the words of a prophet

She’d followed them from Illinois.

She’d followed them from home.

And now she was lying on the wood in the dark.

In between the place

And the dark that chased her.

I wonder if she thought of me,

One that would come after.

I will sleep on top of a coffin

In my own wagon on my own trail

To my own west.

Maybe, after it is all over,

We will be friends.
I was born on a Sunday.

ZION ISN’T A PLACE

Zion isn’t a place.

It’s something we make

And something we share.

Some people dig it out of the ground,

Some people grow it themselves,

And some people are still looking.

Zion isn’t a place.

It’s the pieces we make

And what we do with them.

And my piece of Zion

Does not look like your piece of Zion

But it’s just as perfect.

Zion isn’t a place.

It’s when we take our pieces

And we make a shelter with them.

And we let those with pieces of their own,

Those who are still looking,

And those who aren’t looking at all

Inside.

Zion isn’t a place.

It’s a sanctuary

And it’s here.

Zion isn’t a place.

It’s a feeling

And we are building it as we speak.

Listening to the choir’s voice floating over me like spun-silk blankets I thought

I have never felt like this.