Grace Chapel by David Jibson

Remnants of a neon sign that once proclaimed,
Jesus Saves, dangle from a frayed wire
above the boarded over front door.
The pastor, who worked days at a grain elevator,
packed up and moved his family to the city years ago
before the last of his congregation died out.
Ragweed and goldenrod have pushed themselves
up through the graveled parking lot where flat-bed trucks
and the occasional tractor would gather
Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings
for long sermons that floated out through windows
open to the summer air.
The last of them was about forgiveness,
according to a fallen sign that lays on its back
in a patch of stinging nettles
which it wears like a thorny crown.



David Jibson lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he is an associate editor of Third Wednesday, a literary arts journal, a member of The Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle and The Poetry Society of Michigan. He is retired from a long career in Social Work, most recently with a Hospice agency. He believes the most important element in his poetry is "story".