Perhaps of no sense but to thee and me

If I were to explain to you how I am right now -
what the impact of all this is,
I would simply say
I have stopped taking the Eucharist.
That some dark grief has stepped between my hands and the cup.
Lord have mercy

I suspect I have entered a dark place
Not because of anything other than words on a page tell me it is so.
I still have a few words left
even if they do seem as though they should come with subtitles.
Touch for some reason, (that made total sense to me before)
has taken on a new significance,
stepping up to fill the places abandoned by words.
There is solace in the feel of solid objects.
The bark of trees brings comfort to the palm of my hand,
the wood of the healing cross under my pillow
reminds me of one whose agony leads the way forward.

To look at those suffering around me
And choose to stand with them
in the murk that is both fear and anxiety,
is to be invited to a place of excruciating beauty
and devastating love.
And I am transformed by them.
They are after all as family, so how could it be any other way?

To not loose myself in the fears of a damaged people
who can but call out “… each to their own”
is to plead that somewhere a door remain open to their voice
And to hear myself over and over again ask
Lord have mercy on me a sinner
Till I may come home to the cup