A cloudless sky. A chorus of robins and sparrows marking their territory. Still, it’s too cold for Mira to air-dry her hair on the deck. Besides, we won’t have time to lay about at our leisure.
Our great-niece Viviana will be Christened today. We will journey to the heart of Broadway in Yonkers, New York. To Our Lady of Fatima R.C. Church, flanked by store-fronts on a bustling block. It’s the church that Mira’s brothers and sisters enrolled as parishioners after leaving Our Lady of Victory in Mount Vernon. It’s where Sergio received First Eucharist, where we memorialized my in-laws. It’s where Mira’s siblings still attend mass, even though she and three of her brothers and sisters left Yonkers and Mount Vernon behind.
It’s the last church that Mira wants to visit on her day off.
But visit we will, far from our sylvan estate. We’ll trade bird songs for Honda Civic horns. We’ll endure all of the urban hustle of that neighborhood.
All for family.
barking maltese
the cracked blacktop of a
Yonkers parking lot
UPDATE 12/5/17: I added a photo of the church, new categories/tags, and linked it to dVerse Poets Pub for Tuesday Poetics 12/5/17
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Frank J. Tassone 
All for family….indeed. That’s the key, right? Unconditional love and willingness. 🙂 Haiku adds a wonderfully descriptive postscript!
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Thanks, Lillian! I touched it up with some new tags, a ping back and a photo from the church’s website! 🙂
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Nice job! The Haiku is a wonderful contrast in feel.
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Thanks, Jilly!
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Haiku is always more difficult to write in the city. It’s harder to hear the silence that sings. The lead-up gave me the jitters, but then I was a non-Catholic in a Catholic Boy Scout troop — still in Latin long after Vatican… um, 2 I think. Maybe 5. Dunno.
Did I mention this is a great poem?
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Thanks, Charley. For what it’s worth, I’ve never heard Latin spoken at any mass (post Vatican II).
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Lucky you. As a young lad, I made it a point of honor to make up my own responses to the liturgy (since I didn’t know what any of it meant and no one was going to teach me). I got my head thumped plenty by an old lady in the pew behind the scouts. I swear she used a thimble!
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😆😆😆
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The barking Maltese is certainly a contrast to the reverent echoes of a cantor in a vaulted church. (What I heard from your imagery.) But both voices of God.
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Indeed! Thanks, Amaya!
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Sometimes doing things for family is the right thing to do even though inconvenient.
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Indeed! Thanks, Frank.
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I love this coming together story, even if it means trading birdsong for a city… so many descriptive elements coming together
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loved the sentiment that ran through your poem, all for the sake of family.
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Thanks!
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What a cool way to describe the place you will visit, unique in its mixed scenery but beloved blessing!☺️
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love how the church has so many visits from your family – and the descriptive imagery of bird song vs honda horns
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Thanks, Laura!
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Hi Frank, I loved your devotion to family. I have little and miss this possible devotion. I loved the contrasts and your sacrifices (country bird song for barking cars…) the haiku was lovely, a good contrast.
Jane (Lady Nyo)
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Thanks, Jane! 😀
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