What We're Handed to Hold

They place it in my hands, cloth-bound and thick,

and I'm surprised by what it weighs—not pages,

but the freight of something holding all the ages,

all the hymns that time has let me pick.

I recognize the tune they point me to,

my childhood voice comes back, uncertain, high.

Then they turn the page and I don't try

to sing along—there's nothing I can do.

These hymns are new, or I'm the one who's lost,

who walked away and couldn't find my way back.

The book holds everything I lack,

and doesn't care about the cost.

My hands begin to ache from holding all

this weight of what I know and what I've missed.