Intentions
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip
Their wings in tears, and skim away.
Arthur Tennyson In Memoriam 1850
There were never more than a dozen people scattered around the cathedral waiting for the noontime mass to begin. May preferred a church nearly empty: it emphasized the secret supplication that was the point to her attendance. She entered through the side, liking the casualness of it - akin to letting oneself in through a friend's side porch and hearing the screen shut with a comforting slap. May sat up close where the priest could recognize one of his regulars and took from her purse the folded piece of paper she kept in it. The printed proof of her great failure. What was. And then was not.
May only half heard the mass, although her intentions for it were powerful. She preferred the priest's prayers as mere backdrop to her own, unorthodox sacrament - ink on paper transfigured and sent swirling over the city as acceptance and forgiveness. May was not concerned with heresy - the suffering figure she focused on would be pleased both by her invention and her understanding of the incalculable price of imperfection.
What was. And then was not. May intended to live with both.
Their wings in tears, and skim away.
Arthur Tennyson In Memoriam 1850
There were never more than a dozen people scattered around the cathedral waiting for the noontime mass to begin. May preferred a church nearly empty: it emphasized the secret supplication that was the point to her attendance. She entered through the side, liking the casualness of it - akin to letting oneself in through a friend's side porch and hearing the screen shut with a comforting slap. May sat up close where the priest could recognize one of his regulars and took from her purse the folded piece of paper she kept in it. The printed proof of her great failure. What was. And then was not.
May only half heard the mass, although her intentions for it were powerful. She preferred the priest's prayers as mere backdrop to her own, unorthodox sacrament - ink on paper transfigured and sent swirling over the city as acceptance and forgiveness. May was not concerned with heresy - the suffering figure she focused on would be pleased both by her invention and her understanding of the incalculable price of imperfection.
What was. And then was not. May intended to live with both.