happen.
Big Bang
Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. (Matthew 5:15)
Just when I’m tempted to believe
that my fundamentalist neighbors
have taken the admonition to heart—
Hope is dangerous, kill it young—
I hike by their church-school at noon
and hear the holy thunder: children
file silently through the fire doors, then
explode like a storm of Bazooka bubbles,
blue plaid jumpers and creased khakis
scattering and rolling like billiard balls
across the felt-green, tightly-cropped park
of a playground, jet-propelled by shouts
that echo with a morning’s elation,
cries as bright and lusty as those of their
publicly-educated peers, maybe more.
The air is electric with the freshest
of flesh, swinging and hanging, even
dancing from the bars of parti-colored,
evangelically-maintained jungle gyms,
while rippling clouds of sweaty freedom
rise over the undulating mass
of limbs, until at two bells they fall
back to the quiet brick, exhausted
but not quite dim, new creations,
the fire of damp cheeks and matted hair
bearing testimony that the lamp
within cannot be wholly dimmed,
even by bushels of the darkest belief.
The Elders Visit
And such a joy they are to see. Their shirts
alone are worth my time, such blinding white
against their creased black slacks, sensible shoes,
and shining paperbacks: keys for my salvation.
Come in, fellows! I ask about their mission,
their months away from family and home,
and how the Lord is blessing them in Oregon.
And I ask them to tell me about God. They do.
But sir, have you read the Book of Mormon?. . .
Hmm. So this Smith, was he quite the scholar
of old Semitic languages? No, not at all!
Here their smiles bloom, their eyes turn to pearl:
No, they say, just a third grade education. . . .
The elders are sure I’ll share their wonder.
And so I do, recalling deadly afternoons
in Dr. Reader’s dungeon, each minute an hour,
each semester at least a millennium,
offering up my tortured mistranslations
of Plato, Sophocles, worn pieces of Xenophon,
sweating each particle and grave accent,
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