2008 September 3 poem: LET'S SEE NOW

LET'S SEE NOW

Why is it again that we have church,
some protestant melange,
on Thursdays? Thursday is nobody's
sabbath that I've ever been told. I guess it must be
the afternoon the wandering preacher
has set aside for us. I remember a wandering preacher I knew
back in the fifties - by the time I met him that was no longer his
calling; he'd become a philosophy student instead
but he had kept body and soul together for a number of years
before I met him, going hither and yon preaching though I know
he was not a believer. Sometimes he'd preach to two
congregations on the same day, one
in the morning and one in the afternoon. Anyway Thursday is
our Protestant Sabbath here and there is a mass too but not
on Sunday; I forget just when it is. Maybe it was today before the
protestant service. What I would like is temple, but I don't believe
there are any Jews here; probably if you're Jewish and get
old and sick you go to a Jewish place for the
old and sick, not one like this. I wonder if you
have to be Jewish to get in? I would like it
better, I think, though certainly every place has its
bureaucratic annoyances. But kosher
food every day -
and lots of chicken soup -
that would be nice.