Faith in Literature and Art l Ruminate Magazine

Her head nods and edges
progressively closer to me in sleep
like a buoy forced down by the waves.
The situation is almost laughable. Listening
to such a serious sermon
I half expect the preacher to shout
"Awake ye sleepers!"
and ruin everything.
 
Her daughter-in-law reaches
an arm around her each time her head
bobs too close to my shoulder.
 
I imagine my old woman
when she was a pert young Methodist
raising a family in Arkansas in 1952.
Now sleep has become inevitable
even for the once fervent saint.
Her mind has ceased to anchor her body
so firmly--like seaweed loosed from its moorings.
And I am glad when her daughter-in-law
prays too long
and I feel the dry cheek
dip and settle onto my shoulder.

Elizabeth Carlson is an undergraduate in writing at Whitworth College with a hunger to pursue writing that unites social justice and art. Her preferred forms of writing are creative nonfiction and poetry and much of her writing is inspired by her experiences living in Washington State, Montana, and Sierra Leone. Elizabeth considers herself a clay-pot Christian who is continually broken and remolded by her Father in Heaven.