“A Place For Your Name”

How is it that salvation history depends
upon scripts unwritten and words incomplete?
Weekly festivals do not make the passage
of time any less difficult or slightly trying.
Dancing elders celebrate with high-leg kicks
the message their generation received long ago
from the bottles others tossed into the seas.
A conversation about the next memorial wall
slows, weighted with the wax of last night's
dinner candles which burned too fast.
Writing checks to the cleaning company
and first-time talks with new-found friends
will not create the forgiveness you seek
nor secure a place for your name on the wall.