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Sunday Evenin’ Comin’ Down · Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: You are listening to the Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Please visit online at backwardmutters.substack.com.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: There you can subscribe via your favorite podcast player and read the newsletter.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Randy Edwards.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Today's poem was inspired by a prompt for a November Poem-A-Day challenge several years ago.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: The prompt was Harmatan,
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: which is the dusty northeast wind that blows through West Africa in the winter.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: The dryness and dustiness of the season provides an apt metaphor of
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: a heart condition I experience after an especially tiring day of Sunday ministry.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Also, ever since I saw Larry Gatlin talk
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: about Chris Christopherson's song Sunday Morning Coming Down in
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: the country music documentary by Ken Burns,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've been fascinated with the lyrics and the story of that song.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: My last two stanzas are heavily dependent upon Chris Christopherson's lyrics.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now, for a pastor,
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: it isn't the Sunday morning coming down after a Saturday night that's difficult.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's the coming down on Sunday evening after a full day of ministry.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sunday Evening
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: When the busy work of blowing through the duties of the day
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: and tired like weight grown from the words I've had to say leaves me dragging in
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: the hallways,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: closing up the Sabbath rest, The weary fear, like always, rushes wild in the chest.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I walk the empty church's hall.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: The hollow sound of steps is all the fresh wind of that call.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Doubts all that I've got left.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I check the doors.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I press and lean into the what's-my-part,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: a crash-bar check of brittle dreams and the dryness of the heart.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the only wonder is the wonder of the why that leaves you empty-handed
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: as you look up at the sky.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's the doubting that's the burden,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: the where that leaves you down,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: the weight of all the hurting of Sunday evening coming down.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: The drive home is now in darkness through my town's busy roads where the contrast is
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: in the starkness Of the lightness in the loads.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: In a Sunday evening driveway wishing, Lord, that I was done.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's something in a Sunday makes a body feel alone.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Ain't nothing short of crying, half so lonesome as the sound.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Of a pastor's mind to whine, Sunday evening coming down.
• 2:46
  [music]
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: You've been listening to the Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Randy Edwards.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.
• 2:58
  [music]