"[The line between heaven and earth]"

Listen to Michael McGriff read this poem.

The line between heaven and earth
******glows just slightly
when a bear's gallbladder
******is hacked out
and put on ice in California:
******the line between
heaven and earth begins
******with a ginseng root
and ends in an anvil:
******the gallbladder rides
in a foam cooler
******on a bench-seat
in a pickup heading north: the line
******between heaven and earth
carries a crate of dried fish
******on its back:
The man driving the gallbladder
******used to sell Amway
and sand dollars blessed
******by Guatemalan priests:
the anvil and the root
******describe the body
in youth and in old age:
******the crate of fish
also contains the stars,
******which do not spill out
above the truckstop
******on the Oregon side
of the border, where one man
******counts another's money,
and the gallbladder passes hands:
******this could be your father,
who drove two days
******to spend all the borrowed money
he could find, who unpacks the organ,
******lets it warm on a tin sheet
above his Buick's engine block
******before he crushes
an ashy powder into the bile
******and spoons it
into the mouth of a child
******whose fevers grind
the teeth of rage:
******this is how the stories
of all miracles begin.

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