S-Project

This is my latest for the S-Project. Please note that ordinarily I avoid any type of poetry writing with a 10 foot pole. I enjoy reading it, but I'm not very good at writing it. So please bear that in mind if this happens to make you roll your eyes and think to yourself, "that Izzybella's a sweetie, but she ain't no poet!"

The assignment this month was to write something based on a photograph, a newspaper/magazine story, or an observation made while people-watching. I occasionally go to church with my stepmother, and without fail, there is a lovely old woman who sits in the pew in front of ours. My stepmother is Presbyterian and they're a very ceremonial type of religion-lots of standing up and sitting down throughout the service. No one would think less of this woman if she stayed seated--she is clearly frail, so stooped over she can barely walk, and anymore her cane seems even to lack the support it once did. But she still stands up. This is for her.


Even when she sits, she is bent over
back stooped with the weight of
eighty-four years worth of living.
Her cane leans against the pew
in front of her.
Her gnarled hands shake
with the effort of holding the hymnal.
The opening chords play
and the congregation rises to its feet.
She stands, too, slowly,
back still stooped, one hand holding
the back of the pew in front of her for support;
the other still tightly clutching her hymnal.
Her hand shakes so badly she cannot read,
so instead she hums.
Though she is stooped and frail;
her faith supports her.
She is not proud.
She stands because she loves Him.