Saved

Saved

Heads bowed, men in suits,
women in white lace, walk solemnly to church.

It's a Sunday morning and kids are
racing through the sea-grass,

can't reach the beach, the water, soon enough.
They dart in and out of the slow parade

of churchgoers as if they're just more
salt-fed foliage to evade.

Creoles fill the pews.
Kids splash about in water.

Each a house of worship in its way.
Organ, gulls, provide the music.

Once the hymns begin,
that ramshackle house of worship,

can barely hold the swelling sound.
One kid gets knocked down by a wave.

Another pulls him to safety.
Thus are the people saved

and the hour not yet nine-thirty.