Hymnals and Prayers

We don’t use hymnals in church

any more, the songs are all there

in the bulletin or on the screen,

but hymnals do make good back

support in uncomfortable pews

so we keep them at the ready.

We don’t say the Lord’s Prayer

or the Apostle’s Creed like we

used to say it, the way I grew up

saying it, using those words

King James heard, but I stubbornly

keep saying art and hallowed and thy

and trespasses and imagine the King

smiling with his divine translators.

Photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.