This Was My Father’s House
There’s an old church on a prairie hill
above the Missouri outside Wolf Point
where hope had me return, seeking
to recover the world as it was.
Many years before, I was a boy
with his dad pulling an old Plymouth
off the highway here among a throng
of blackeyed susans and queen anne’s lace
on Sunday mornings. The upright
piano used to work a little beauty
and God out an open window
as Dad grabbed his black robe
and a black book to hurry in with a beating
heart and words prepared. I waved
at Doris Crow, Loyal Half Red, Stan Hollow Horn
and others as they hustled in.
It being second service on the circuit
that morning, I sat on the carhood outside
leaning against the windshield, eyes closed,
listening to hymns sung in Dakota tongue,
the murmured prayers and talk of spirit things
pour into the church yard in Montana.
But now the doors are padlocked with a chain
at Chelsea Church, and on the ridge of roof
missing patches of shingles, pigeons perch
like vultures on the spine of a carcass.
I stood on an apple crate to climb
through what was once a window.
Like dominoes, two rows of weathered pews
lay toppled on each other, the pulpit
fallen among a clutter of broken bottles.
From mud nests on a ledge in the chancel,
swallows dove down to pass the peace.
Outside, the sun hung at the edge
of the Earth. Crickets and redwing blackbirds
sang evening hymns while foxtail grasses bent
as if at prayer before the western wind.
– Angus Watkins