Our Modern Moment

Our Modern Moment

Jensen A. Kirkendall

Sleep is the prayer the body prays.
—Wendell Berry

i
Steal away with me into
the softer light of evening.
Too long we’ve squirreled away
our lives into these whirring,
clicking, beeping blurs.
Our bodies burn with acid
in these false-daylight hours.
We must up and go.
The attachment is strong.
Let us remove ourselves.
Come, come! Enough
of endless toil, turgid fatigue,
thorny minds, and endless
hurry.

ii
As we go like children
we will hum the tunes
of long-forgotten songs.
We will traipse under
the lesser light, walking
the steel-blue streets
until we find a pocket
of first paradise. In this grove
of adolescent night
the trees are wet
with the dew of dusk.

iii
Here we whisper fondly of soft dreams
and loved ones from long ago,
muttering until our brother,
rest, at last returns to us.
He bids us send our cares
down the river of reflected stars.
We swim in this forgotten stream,
blossoming until the dawn light creeps
with gentle fingers, lulling us back
to wakefulness. We surface
with the life we thought we’d lost.

---

Jensen Armstrong Kirkendall 
Educator & Parish Administrator

Jensen is originally from Santa Cruz, CA. After studying Literature and Humanities in the LA area, he moved to Winston-Salem, NC to earn his MA in Literature at Wake Forest. He now teaches middle-school Humanities and is a church administrator. Jensen has published poetry with Ekstasis Magazine (2022); co-authored Journey Back Again (2022), an academic book on J.R.R. Tolkien; and self-published a collection through Barnes & Noble entitled Tithe Poems (2023).

Photography by Adam Borkowski