Rarely has a program of the Daniel Island Historical Society opened with more power and emotion than when South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth read her poem “Holy City” about the tragic Mother Emmanuel murders. If you missed the meeting (Tuesday, November 15), here is her poem:
“Let us gather and be silent together like stones glittering in sunlight, so bright it hurts our eyes, emptied of tears, and searching the sky for answers.
Let us be strangers together as we gather in circles wherever we need to stand, hand-in-hand, and sing hymns to the heavens and pray to the fallen.
And speak their names: Clementa, Cynthia, Tywanza, Ethel, Sharonda, Daniel, Myra, Suzie, and DePayne.
They are not alone. As bells in the spires calls across the wounded Charleston sky, we close our eyes and listen to the same stillness ringing in our hearts, holding on to one another, like brothers, like sisters, because we know that wherever there is love, there is God.”
