Songs of the Lesser Servants

SUNDAY PRAXIS AMONG BEACH UMBRELLAS      

Creation glowed that day of blue and yellow
As the sun blazed and ocean and sky
Stretched clear beyond orange and red and purple
Umbrellas brightly colored, looking like
Toadstools randomly tilted beneath the white
And lofty condominiums.  The women
Were seated in their folding divans sunning
Their bodies while patting and pampering
Religiously, as the men walked and watched
As if in silent worship, while few went swimming;
When from afar a mighty voice sounded
In fracturing bursts and resounding rhythms:
"Repent!..Repent!..Repent and believe!"
Amidst the boardwalk crowds eventually
Appeared the prophet, his leathered face wholly
To the skies upturned, doing his Sunday duty-
As with his two strong arms he flung the words
Like seeds upon the Maker's wide creation.
And turned a woman her mouth contorted
As if to throw a word along her splayed
Left leg to her far left toes, "What'd he say?"
Answered her man as sand poured from his hands
Like time: "He said, 'Repent!'"  I heard others say
The same.  Among the motionless human
Silence there came a breeze to bear away
Aromas of coconut suntan lotions
And gently flutter the brightly colored
Beach umbrellas.  And gentle waves in motion
Obeyed the gentle ocean in deference
As the Holy Spirit moved among us
That day the prophet did his Sunday Praxis,
And our souls said confessions on the sands.
"repent...for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”
Matthew 3:2

CONE MOUNTAIN
(The Mountain’s Revenge)

The lattice of the evening's falling brushed
Dark shadows on the face of Cone Mountain.
The massive boulders and burnt umber trunks,
Recessed among the scraggly dresses of the evergreens,
Increased a wild disorder as deepened
The colors of green, rock gray and brown,
And reddened ground-slides where roots of bushes clung.
Rising spirals of thick smoke troubled sight,
Ascending from feathered balls of orange fire,
To join encroaching darkness of the night
As workers carved and blackened the mountain's base.

On the far side of Cone Mountain above
The humping foothills but just below the crags
And high reaches of the rocky peak...where the young
And foolhardy clamored to learn the mountain's
Hardest lessons...Lollie Bea gazed upward
Toward the morning sun, turned and strapped her luggage
On the black horse's rump and threw her parents
Last kisses.  As she descended through the dabs
Of clouds she looked down to buzzards far beneath
Circling the fenced-in meadows and realized
Her neighbor had submitted to blind fate
Another calf.  Among the twisted pines,
The limestone rocks, the startled grouse and deer,
The labyrinths of watery serpentines
That wove and gurgled through the endless stretches
Of tangled Laurel, she bid farewell
To her mountain home the neighbors called “Rich Man's Folly.”

She and the black horse fanned their wanderings
As they journeyed outward on circuitous trails
That wound around the base of Cone Mountain.
Having passed the scrubbed-off flats and burning piles
She stopped and tied her horse and met the limousine...
Departing as she heard the drumming of thunderous blasts