The Book of Simon

I. He called it Crackberry

At the corner of Hackberry and Nevada you’ll find his church.
The preacher with the strong, chalky, dry hands.
Africa is there carved in wood,
Proud lips protruding to the sky.

He told me of the man of god who got him a new girl friend and a new car at the same time
And when somebody asked him where she was
He said he left her on the curb down the road a couple of blocks.

The other story of the preacher with the speech
            impediment I didn’t get all of because of the noise.
Something about an underground railroad he said would get me in trouble if I wrote about.

Tomorrow I go to church for the first time.

II.

I went at 9am.
There was not the service I expected.
I saw an apparition of the man of god on the way there.
I parked and decided to walk down the road til I found him.

How do you lose a preacher in a bright orange suit?

III. “Jesus must be six feet tall.”

“It was by this fence that he appeared.
I told you of the man that wanted me to carve a picture of the lord?”

Simon’s fingertips felt out the faces of his ancestors in Africa.
“Without a model I can carve them, they are my people.”

“And I was afraid. ‘Thou shall carve no graven images.’”
But he begged and I tried and I just couldn’t get it right
So I asked the lord to show himself to me
So I could carve his face in wood. And he answered.
And there he stood.
“Jesus is a tall man.”

Jason Van Blaricom