When the priest raised the Host: a bell. Even far back in the unfamiliar cathedral I heard it comfort us. To me the incense smelled like the inside of an old Baptist piano. I know the same words but they live in me differently. Kneel, stand, sit: I offered my grief clumsily. On this winter night across the dark fallow fields: my neighbor’s light. No words, only a presence, a certain trust, an understanding that in this uncertain cold we will not let each other freeze. I know this without pledge or creed. The smoke from his wood stove drifts toward me. I hear his horse paw the frozen earth beneath the listening stars.