A Myriad of Sundays

I couldn’t pinpoint the day

I no longer needed to stand on tiptoes

to see over the pew,

but one day in line for Communion,

I noticed I was taller than

most of the women in our congregation.

And that young man in the front pew

is not Mateo. No, he stopped

coming years ago.

This is his little brother

who used to wave to me from his tricycle.

The three men guitar choir

has since disbanded due to illness and been

replaced by a CD of a stranger singing.

The viejitas and viejitos

have taken on canes and walkers

but remain the first ones in

and last ones out,

rosary beads in purses,

ready for the next funeral.

Please tell us something more about the poem:

“A Myriad of Sundays” is a poem that was a couple of years in the making, but written in one sitting. I grew up in a small Texas town and had attended the same church all of my life. After so many years, I looked around and all of the changes that had been so subtle, caught up to me as I was sitting in the back pew on a weekend home from college. In the end, I wrote this poem as a love letter to the people who gave me an appreciation for my culture and a safe place to grow up.  

Madison Nicole Navarro is a Texas Tech University student majoring in Biology. Her interest in people and stories from her hometown inspire her work. Her short fiction work is featured in the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 editions of The Harbinger, A Journal of Art & Literature. In her spare time, she performs spoken word poetry and plays sudoku.