Summer Lightning

The summer tent revival

Was down, down, down

Where Blue Road

Meets the village

I’d drag my sister up there

And we’d clap

And sing

And listen to words

About Jesus

My sister would put on

Her long grey dress

And when I tell you

She was the only one
Who could make grey

Look like red

I’m not lying

All the men at the revival

Would stare at her

And the preacher

Would see ‘em staring

And rebuke ‘em

For their devil eyes

And their endangered souls

But my sister would just laugh
And let out holy cries

Talking about Jerusalem

And King David

And places in the Bible

Nobody’d ever heard of

Because we weren’t Bible-readers

Unless we were under a tent

Trying to beat back the heat

With paper fans

My sister would talk in tongues

And the preacher would condemn her tongue

Because he wanted the sole privilege

Of being able

To commune with the divine

But she would spin around
In a dervish circle

And say she was talking

To Great-Grandma

And Great-Uncle so-and-so

And anybody else

Long gone

From this world

The folks from the village

Would throw coins at her

Asking her

To please bring forth

The baby they lost at birth

Or the husband

Who took a heart attack

At the breakfast table

Pretty soon it was hard to tell

Who they believed in more

Her or the preacher

He and my sister would go toe-to-toe

Calling forth spirits

And throwing mercy

Onto the onlookers

But whereas the preacher

Would threaten hell

Anytime someone got to close

To my sister

She would only

Talk of Heaven

People would say

They got thunder

From the preacher

And lightning

From my sister

I was too young

To know what that meant

But I knew one day

We’d all pay

For making a man of god

Look foolish

Two days before my eleventh birthday

And three days before the first revival

Of the summer

Our house caught fire

And we lost everything

But the clothes we had on

My sister believed somebody

Set that fire

But she didn’t say a word about it

After three days

Of sleeping in the field

Under the stars

My sister marched us

Right into that tent

And started talking

The preacher tried to cast her out

Told her that the fire

Was punishment from the lord

For all her false idolatry

And that if anybody so much as looked at her

They’d find themselves

Sleeping in dirt right next to her

But my sister talked

And while she talked she cried

And while she cried she prayed

And while she prayed she sang

And the villagers sang with her

All the songs of folks

Who weren’t afraid

To lose what little they had

Provided they could keep

What meant everything

Their family

Their faith

The feeling that came

From spinning around

And around

Until you saw god

The preacher was run out of town

And my sister and me

Moved in with a nice family

Who lived the gospel

Even if they couldn’t read it

The revivals ended after that summer

And now it’s just something

You remember

When you want to remember

Sometimes we still get lightning

With no thunder

And when that happens

It’s hard to remember

Anything else