Mama’s Early Morning Gospels

Mama’s Early Morning Gospels

It was always in the morning when your praises and hymns echoed throughout every house we homed.

Sometimes the songs changed, moving from telling it on the mountain to his eyes watching the sparrow, but for the most part they stayed the same

“He’s holdin’, he’s watchin’, and protectin’ me…”

But Mama, you sung as if those chords were forever evolving, sung in our junky kitchen over the richest golden eggs, sung over sizzling bacon hissing like the Devil himself, sung over fluffy biscuits that rose with each crescendo, and on special days, sung over soft, buttery pancakes.

You sung those songs over a static radio that didn’t do your voice justice, but still your voice climbed up those creaking stairs and awoke me stirring me to sneak down and ignore my chores despite the trouble I’d get into, just to watch you sing.

And Mama, I don’t think you remember or ever even realized that I knew the pain of missing last month’s payment was aching you that I knew the pain of slaving to feed me was breaking you.

But Mama, I listened to your early morning gospels watched the god you sang to wrap their arms around you, dry your tears and tell you that it was going to be alright, and that you were gonna be fine. Cause we had woke to see another day and had praises to sing too.

• Bird on a Cage, Jordan Matthews

Copper and bronze, 5 x 3 in., 2020