The tug of a prayer chain

Last spring I helped the church
I was in the process of leaving prepare for its 100th anniversary celebration.
One of my tasks was to track down contact information for the people on the
invitation list. It wasn't exactly what I went to seminary to do, but I'm a
librarian's daughter and otherwise generally disposed to exemplary
web-searching skills.

One of the people on my list
was Mark Jarman, the son of a former pastor. He stood out, even on a list that
included a fair share of interesting people: he's a poet who teaches English at
Vanderbilt University. I was slightly disappointed, though not surprised, when
the news came that he would not be attending the homecoming weekend.

I probably would have forgotten
about Jarman if not for a trinity of coincidences that unfolded one week a year
later. A member of the church sent me a copy of "The Prayer Chain," a poem from
Jarman's 2011 collection Bone Fires.
A friend unaware of my church connection to Jarman sent me a link to another
poem of his featured on Writers Almanac.