Forgotten Ground Regained
My Grandfather's Church Goes Up
(Acts 2:1-47)
God is a fire in the head -- Nijinsky
Holocaust, pentecost: what heaped heartbreak:
The tendrils of fire forthrightly tastingfoundation to rooftree flesh of that edifice …Why was sear sent to sunder those jointures,the wheat-hued wood wasted to heaven?Both altar and apse the air ascendedin sullen smoke.
(It was surely no signof God’s grievance but grizzled Weird grimlyand widely wandering.)
The dutiful worshippersStood afar ghast-struck as the green cedar shinglesBurst outward like birds disturbed in their birling.Choir stall crushed inward flayed planking in curliquesback on it bending, broad beams of chestnutoak poplar and pine gasht open paint-pockets.And the organ uttered an unholy Omegaas gilt pipes and pedals pulsed into rubble.
How it all took tongue! A total hosannahthis building burgeoned, the black hymnals whisperingleaves lisping in agony leaping alight,sopranos’ white scapulars each singly singeingrobes of the baritones roaring like riversthe balcony bellowing and buckling. In the basementwhere the M.Y.F. had mumbled for merciesthe cane-bottom chairs chirruped Chinese.What a glare of garish glottalsrose from the nave what knar-mouthed natter!And the transept tottered intoning like tympanias the harsh heat held hold there.The whole church resounded reared its rare anthemCrying out Christ-mercy to the cloud-cloven sky.
Those portents Saint Paul foretold to us peoplesfresh now appeared: bifurcate fire-tongues,as of wild winds a swart mighty wrestling,blood fire and vapor of smoke vastly vaulting,the sun into darkness deadened and dimmed,wonders in heaven signs wrought in the world:the Spirit poured out on souls of us sinners.In this din of drunkenness the old men dreamed dreams,the daughters and sons supernal sights saw.God’s gaudy grace grasped them up groaning.Drought parched within them pure power overtakingtheir senses. Sobbing like sweethearts bereftthe brothers and sisters burst into singing.Truly the Holy Ghost here now halted,held sway in their hearts healed there the hurt.
Now over the narthex the neat little steepleforce of the fire felt furiously.Bruit of black smoke borne skywardshadowed its shutters swam forth in swelter.It stood as stone for onstreaming momentsthen carefully crumpled closed inward in char.The brass bell within it broke loose, bountifullypealing, plunged plangent to the pavementand a glamour of clangor gored cloudward gaily.
That was the ringing that wrung remorse out of us clean,the elemental echo the elect would hear always;in peace or in peril that peal would pull them.Seventeen seasons have since partedthe killing by fire of my grandfather’s kirk.Moving of our Maker on this middle earthis not to be mind-gripped by any men.
Here Susan and I saw it, cometo this wood, wicker basket and wool blanketswung between us, in sweet Juneon picnic. Prattling like parakeetswe smoothed out for our meal-place the mild meadow grassesand spread our sandwiches in the sunlit greensward.Then amorously ate. And afterwardLay languorous and looking lazily.Green grass and pokeweed gooseberry bushespink rambling rose and raspberry vinesassafras and thistle and serrate sawbriarclover and columbine clung to the remnants,grew in that ground once granted to God.Blackbirds and thrushes built blithely thereThe ferret and kingsnake fed in the footing.The wilderness rawly had walked over those wallsand the deep-drinking forest had driven them down.
Now silence sang: swoon of windambled the oak trees and arching aspens.
In happy half-sleep I heard or half-heardin the bliss of breeze breath of my grandfather,vaunt of his voice advance us vaward.No fears fretted me and a freedom followedthis vision vouchsafed, victory of spirit.He in the wind wept not, but wonderfullyspoke softly soothing to peace.
What mattered he murmured I never remembered,words melted in wisps washed whitely away;but calm came into me and cool repose.Where Fate had fixed no fervor formed;he had accepted wholeness of his handiwork.
gain it was given to the Grace-grain that grew it,had gone again gleaming to Genesis
to the stark beginning where the first stars burned.Touchless and tristless time took it anewand changed that church-plot to an enchanted chrisomof leaf and flower of lithe light and shade.
Pilgrim, the past becomes prayerbecomes remembrance rock-real of Resurrectionwhen the Willer so willeth works his wild wonders.
Originally published in Fred Chappell, Midquest: A Poem, Louisiana State University Press, 1981. Reprinted with permission.
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