The old hymns have drifted away,
have
found new homes and are silent now.
They
do not reach the glorious sky
or
Moses or Abraham or Isaac
or
a bejeweled city with twelve gates.
There
is no longer a ladder for them to climb.
The
rock of ages sits in a museum in Philly.
The
old rugged cross, worse for the wear,
is
part of the Johnson home’s frame
in
Kansas, part of a load-bearing wall.
The
garden where he walked and talked
was
weeded and made into a park
where
old men play chess before they die.
The
roll meant to be called up yonder
is
a dusty scroll at the Smithsonian,
an
example of early Sumerian writing.
The
people who sang them on Sunday mornings,
the
ones with suits and ties, bonnets and bows
and
hair parted with Brylcreem,
are
sitting on tombstones or waiting,
always
waiting in nursing homes
for
Cotton Mather or Jonathan Edwards
to
sweep them into severe glory
and
puffy clouds devoid of laughter.
Besides,
their throats are dry
and
their tongues too cracked and worn
to
make a joyful noise unto the sagging rafters.
~William Hammett
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