Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              Nones as a Religious Category


                               …afterwards our pupils
                               will not forgive in us what we forgave

                                             -Yevtushenko, “Lies”


If children ask for bread will we give them

Musical stylings of abysmal mediocrity
Packaged in the poster-art palettes of the sixties
When the altars and the hymnals were stripped
Of everything beautiful, true, and good

When

Latin missals were reduced to baby-talk
Felt banners appeared like refrigerator art
The Body of the Lord was shoveled aside
In a malformed tabernacle of hammered scrap

And maybe that’s why the young people leave -
We’ve given them little in which to believe