Poem and Laughing Baby

I found this video on YouTube and couldn't stop laughing at it. I then spent the next hour looking up videos of laughing babies.



I also found this poem in a journal I wrote. It's no where near as good as the laughing baby, but I liked it, so I'm burying here where it's sure to be upstaged.

The Hymn

In the valley
at the bend of a thin dirty creek
I drove up to a leaning wooden church,
stones popping under under the tires.
The windows were open
the children laying on wooden pews.
Old women in large hats
fanned themselves,
and the old man behind me
shook like the organ music.
The farmer's fingers
thick as toes
gripped the hymnal
like a cold clod of earth.
The man across the sanctuary
sang loudly
while we whispered the hymn.
Outside, through the window,
I saw the mountains
folded on the ground
like laundry.
The clouds made their slow pilgrimage
across the thin blue expanse
all wandering slowly in the same direction.
And as we stood to sing the Gloria Patri
the pews creaked
and behind me, children laughed.
The curtains flapped.
And the organ breathed
an old
slow
hymn.