God's Hands

(A Sestina based on an abandoned amusement park in New Orleans)

God’s hands make me sway

Perhaps you could call it the wind,

But I’m sure it’s your savior above.

His presence keeps me from truly being alone

When no child or man comes here.

When all I hear is silence.

Silence.

Silence.

It’s the suffering you get in silence

That sustains the body’s sway

When no one else can come here.

My home is locked courtesy of the Devil’s wind,

Which leaves all of us children of mirth alone

With nothing but the sun and God above.

Above.

Above our poor souls.

I reach my arms out to the sky above

And the chain ever so slightly breaks the silence

Which has me believing we will always be alone.

I remember how the children would sit and sway

Anticipating the soon-to-be rushing wind

And they would scream, “I love being here!”

Here.

Here with me.

But that idea of wanting to be here

Is gone like so many of the clouds above

That were moved that day thanks to His wind.

I am left with their gazes and their silence.

I am left watching their hips move and sway

Toward their destroyed homes that also left them alone.

Alone.

Alone with or without him.

I once heard a man say he knew the horror of being alone.

He told another man that was the reason he came here

And watched those flags and boards in the wind sway.

Because he knew when he was with others up above…

When he was with them on the roller coaster just before losing silence,

He knew he and the others were not alone in the wind.

Wind.

Wind rushing through us.

But he doesn’t come here anymore to talk about the wind.

None of them come to help us not be alone.

No, they leave us to our silence.

They think, “Who would come here?”

And they think about when the water was above

And the winds made their solid houses sway.

Sway.

Sway with the Devil’s scream.

So my chairs sway in the wind

As those people who are above being alone
Leave me here in my silence.

Silence.

Silence.

And wind.

And Him.