A Night of Hot Quirky Shows
The theme was heat! I read this poem...
FAITH OF OUR FATHERS
The gully,
a thurible
wafting
bushfire smoke;
the smoke
pungent, acrid.
Down in Ad-or-ation falling…
we used to
sing…
this
great sacrament Divine…
while the
priest and his entourage filled the aisle
with the
embroidered satin and pungent stink of godly things.
The smoke
from scarlet-resined gums,
from
purple-podded wattle,
from dry
bracken and dogwood
cleaving to
the towns down south
like burrs
to an old grey blanket.
No one can
tell where it’s coming from,
so thick
and low-lying is the somnolent smoke.
We closet
ourselves inside the house
while a
million smoke-crazy midges
batter the
windows.
At five
minutes past ten, the rains begin,
staccato,
percussive,
(a
benediction!)
then fluid,
a chrism,
a million
small, finite heavens
sliding on
the roof.
Falling,
bouncing off,
making
runnels in the corrugations,
on and on,
steady and
strong,
cleansing
the air.
I bring the
washing indoors.
It is
flecked with white ash
the size of
the mosquitoes that
lazily,
slothfully,
patrol us
in the night.
The rain
falls,
softening
sometimes…
but on and
on it falls,
dousing the
terrible flames
we cannot
even see.
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