Happy Union, Texas
at the waterhole north end of grandfather's farm
where Kirby keeps his cattle.
It's evening and a hundred and ten degrees.
Barbas de Oro is whooshing up from El Rio Grande.
The chaparral throbs, and the cornfields rattle like pissed-off snakes.
I float in a pond, listen to killdeer, and scissor-tails.
Frogs plop in the water and ripple after ripple
passes through me.
I'm a buoy connected to Yahweh.
My head bobs in the swish\swoosh
body of water, and I muse –
if Jesus is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent;
if He is here at this moment,
has He counted every hair on my head;
if He knows me fully,
and I know Him,
having consumed His body
and drank His blood,
if He is here now,
does He ascend in golden plumes,
arms raised, palms turned outward,
pale face, blue-eyed, and blond;
or is He in the water
nude,
dark, shiny as a stone;
hair raven and in curls,
eyes black and catholic?
"Well Rabbi," I begin,
"It's like this --"
We talk late in the evening.
Just me and Jesus
-- neither here nor there --
in the heart of Texas,
in a slow spiral,
our heads bobbing
in the swish\swoosh
body of water.
