Alpheton Church Coda: West Suffolk

Alpheton Church CodaWest Suffolk G. C. Waldrep (bio) I am trying to be very clear here:the construction we call window.Do you want me to argue with it?With glass? With light?With representation? With God?I am God's argument, as I amlight's argument, its client.This troubles me to the precise extentI feel it, the argument that I am,that is God's, that is light's,moving through me.Prayer, theophany, hope, despair;joy, terror (in their star turns).I want to remove my thumbfrom the scale, which is a problemsince they're identical: thumb, scale.It's tomorrow now, a bit to the south.I walk along the railway scar;I imagine nothing. One can bethankful & devastated at the sametime. The hymns that arisefrom this process are blind hymnsthat sing themselves, for instanceacross a plowed fieldpunctuated by spring warblers,their jots & tittles, their commas& semicolons. Friend breath,welcome: you are so kind to join mehere. You were my pedagogue,(once) my chaperone.Friend breath, meet friend pain.This is your duet. While you performI will stand very still [End Page 332] & let a honeybee taste me. It settleson my forearm, & then againstmy cheek. In some sense, to someslight degree, it remembers.I am, once again, wearing the shirt& hat of dead men, whose daughtersI did not marry. The glass in itssettled panes, its ancient, cold-flowfurrows. Meanwhile, faith.It's not an argument. It's a song,only you don'tperform it, it performs you.The argument that is you, brushingagainst you, on its way throughyou to you, the you where you are. [End Page 333] G. C. Waldrep G. C. Waldrep has published a number of poetry collections, including feast gently (Tupelo, 2018), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, The Earliest Witnesses (Tupelo/Carcanet, 2021), and The Opening Ritual (Tupelo, forthcoming 2024). He lives in Lewisburg, PA, where he teaches at Bucknell University. Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press