The Sorbets - Samples
"THE MIDDLE WAY"
I do not understand these tears.
I hear a choir on the radio, singing "Noel" and
my memory spasms—my mother (long gone now),
a United Church, Christmases past, being stranded
between being a kid and an adult, the smooth wooden pews,
Joy Fisher, who sang in the choir and had beautiful lips,
the dichotomy of my father’s violence and his attending church every week,
the squeak of snow,
But there is a more prominent memory stranded here—
I’m singing, hesitantly at first—inside the Noel chorus—and I
am not able to reach the high notes, but rather,
find the middle harmonies—carve my own path inside
the more common routes—I deviate but still find harmony.
And I was happy in the middle way.
I had no understanding of “congregation” but there was something
beautifully simple going on—and I was part of it.
And I have not been there since.