(Ages 8-adult) The Rain Barrel

by BC Williams Fri 11 Feb 2011, 5:45 pm

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One summer day in the 1930's, Esther, and her cousin Ula Mae, answered a calling to get all things right before God. For her, helping prepare souls for the Kingdom of Heaven was a serious matter indeed! On that glorious day of recompense, they gathered together the animals. Cherry the milk cow and her calf, her father's favorite chickens, and Toy, her beautiful white Persian cat.

Esther Marie Buttermore is my mother . . . .

..... (Ages 8-adult) The Rain Barrel Girlbarnrainbarrelmz4

(Ages 8-adult) The Rain Barrel Girlbarnrainbarrelmz4

.....Like a bat with a rudder -
.....a cat, eyes glistening slits in green, swoops:
.....rooftop
.....top of door
.....atop a red-paint milk can landing silent
.....behind Buttermore's barn.

.....Then a girl's inner voice speaks:
.....prepare ye now the rain barrel,
.....for consider this -
.....creatures of the pen and barn,
.....they too Esther, fall short of the glory of God.
.....Concurrently, cousin Ula Mae holds up barn walls
.....and practices rewriting new testament stories,
.....“John of the Desert,” she elegizes,
....."cried!" she dramatizes,
.....“'baptizing good and right in the name of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.'”

.....The cat sighs . . .
.....and Esther,
.....the paled daughter of Pastor Buttermore shudders,
.....her fingers reaching to still lips from further desecration
.....and prays,
.....“Almighty God,
.....savest this Thy seven-year-old,
.....whom Thou knowest!, knowest not what she saith.”

.....With an earful of grinning almighty God winks . . .

.....Then zealful girls gather animals
.....lined up two by two
.....in makeshift pews for soul saving.
.....One by one, the two by two's
.....bank along the river cylindrical,
.....a strong, young voice reprieves:
.....“Be thou dead to thy sins,
.....in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

.....The ducks, being first,
.....are instinctual and quack-laugh.

.....But both bovine refuse,
.....stomping hooves and mouthing crass bellows.

.....Sadly, two chickens drown,
.....for they, being chickens,
.....take breathe while too long under.

.....And the cat swishes and sways
.....through ankles baptized damp,
.....unknowing its destiny changes today -
.....from sinner to saint.

..... © 2006 by BC Williams

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