"Lightning Strike in Paradise"

Click here to listen to Andrew Hudgins read this poem.


Jesus-the-wind combs Jesus-the-rye and shakes
the limbs of Jesus-the-scrub-pine-and-alder,
while a tractor, disking the rye, churns into the sunset
red clouds of Jesus. Jesus-the-bank-of-young-ferns
fringes Jesus-the-sluggish-and-rocky-stream
rich with tadpoles, crayfish and almost invisible minnows,
all Jesus Himself. Jesus-the-green-worm inches up air.
He humps His body, pulls His end to His middle, and pushes
upward to where he started, climbing His own fine thread
until a gust of Jesus snaps the silk and sends Him flying.
Jesus-the-lightning explodes an oak. Jesus-the-thunder reverberates
through green leaves, the Jesus leaves, silencing
the Jesus-chitter of squirrels, wrens and cicadas,
and in the distance the tractor never stops grinding
rye into the earth, preparing it for seed,
as the gunpowder smell of nitrogen settles over heaven.

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