The lives we do not actually possess.

I struggled with a lonely crusade in my mind
recapturing their significance and meaning
to sacred rituals that drew us together here.
Then I preside the solemn liturgy of life,
qualifying the fading worth of our existence.
The solemn procession crawled through the assembly,
pass the aisle of believers whose faith was a shell
of all the ancient convictions of their forebears.
Their presence: a detente against the punishments
for sins they have committed, omitted and planned.
The much older folks wished the prayers were over,
as if once was just enough to move their vague gods.
The little ones made busy by technologies
sending messages to others whose god was lost
in the meaninglessness of Sunday exercise.
I intoned sacred verses from yellowed pages
of rubrical incantations and hallowed words:
the gathered crowd falling silent for a moment
for a fleeting unity we ceased pretending
to the lives we do not actually possess.