Revival

Now chaos has pitched a tent
in my pasture, a kind of circus
tent like a tan toadstool
in the land of giants. O
all night long the voices of
the damned and saved keep me
awake and, basso, the evangelist.
Fire & brimstone, thunder & lightning,
telegrams in the unknown tongue.
The bushes are crawling with couples.
I see a girl so leafy that
she might he Daphne herself.

I know there were giants once,
one-eyed wonders of the morning
world. Ponderous, they rode
dinosaurs like Shetland ponies,
timber for toothpicks, boulders for
baseballs, oceans for bathtub,
whales for goldfish. Great God, when they shook fists and roared
stars fell down like snowflakes
under glass! Came then Christ,
to climb the thorny beanstalk,
saved us one and all.

ARE YOU SAVED????

Hocks are painted, trees nailed
with signs, fences trampled.
Under the dome of the tent
falls salt of sweat and tears
to kill my grass at the roots.
Morning and I’ll wake to find
the whole thing gone. Bright dew
and blessed silence. Nothing
to prove they camped here and tried
to raise the crop of hell except
the scar of dead space (where the tent
was) like a huge footprint.