2-18-78
A childhood Bible fossilized
in a cinder-block bookcase
between The Whole Earth Catalogue,
Man’s Search for Meaning, and a razored-out book
camouflaging a stash. “To believe or not believe”—
the question percolating for months.
This evening I drive to Chapel Hill,
streetlights dopplering by the open window.
A thought blazes through thin space on 421N:
“Are you going to accept Jesus as the Son of God, or not?”
My voice yells out the window “Yes—yes!”
The next night a dream surfaced:
I grasp at a slick, stainless-steel dome,
while above layers of propellers
on the same axis rest motionless
as I slide into a huge vat of gritty crankcase oil.
Spectators above cannot reach my oily hand
and I sink deeper into quickoil
until
I know I am safe in Father’s hands
as oil turns into warm water. I float,
a buoy, in the womb of God.
The writer has written both free and metric verse for over fifty years. He has been published in Ancient Paths, Windhover - A Journal of Christian Literature, The Anglican Theological Journal, and others. But poetry is merely a hobby; he is a retired clinician, volunteers at a prison camp, seniors’ center, and food pantry; sings in the annual December Messiah, and is graced with a happy family and Yeshua.