Seeing Ball Lightning Is Believing
“A long ball of fire was rolling down the stovepipe…
Ma tried to brush it into the ashpan.”
On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder
The ball entered the church,
evaporated Holy Water,
knelt at pews till they smoked,
burnt hymn books into soot.
At each station of the cross
this impossible electric force
caressed a carved Christ with fire,
splitting and doubling his strife.
At the altar there was no stoop
to bended knee, no crossing,
just sparks and ascending flame:
vestments burned thread by thread.
Until Ma Ingalls took up her brush
to sweep that pentecostal ball away.
The good parishners were careful
not to play cards in the pews again.
© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment