How Shall We Sing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land?

We crept up, watched a black man shovel dry bursts of dirt into the air. Engrossed, he didn't see me till my friend hawked hard and then stepped out of sight. The man jerked back, convinced I'd come to spit on him. Held there by guilt that wasn't fairly mine, I braced for what he'd say. Instead, he smiled, forgave the sin I hadn't sinned, and turned back to his work. I stumbled off and yelled, Goddamn you! at my friend, who laughed. Behind us, sand exploded from the hole, caught wind, and drifted slowly down past headstones. Within a month two boys found the black man hanging from a hickory, his face vague in a mis of gnats. And every time they told the story the gnats grew thicker, fiercer. But I believed. I ached the guiltless ache of dreams and shuddered. A family that I never saw mourned him. Their lives changed and that change spread out past my small-by imaging -- though I tried hard to follow it, at twelve already remembering how, ten years old, I'd stand before the mirror and aim a flashlight in my mouth. White cheeks glowed red. I knew that when I flicked the switch I would no loner shine with bloodlight, like stained glass. I would return to the flesh I'd always been. Back then, I thought that if I could I'd forgive nothing -- I'd change everything. But that's before I learned how we get trapped inside the haunts and habits of this world. While we drink coffee, gossip, my cousin's daughter pounds on the piano. It drives me nuts. But Ellen's used to it. The child plays till she drops, and then we lug her -- elongated and limp -- to bed. My cousin tuckers her in, chooses one music box from dozens on a shelf, winds it, and sets it by her child's damp head. The girl hums, drifts from one world she creates into another. A dark circle of drool surrounds her head. My cousin loves her with the tenderness we save for something that will ruin our lives, break us, nail us irretrievably into this world, which we, like good philosophers, had meant to hate. This world, this world is home. But it will never feel like home.