A small patch of green lawn with a water fountain in the middle created from hoes and rakes urbles water. ‘Oh thank heaven!’ in fluorescent, some feet above our heads. Big boulders sit on the lawn and we sit on them. I inhale dust through my nostrils, taste it in the back of my parched throat. An empty Slurpee cup in my hand after walking the to, and from, and back again of this small town. Selah has been weighed, measured, and found wanting with the length of our footsteps. And he asks, how can you speak comfort? Words die on my lips when the ground shivers like the tremor of a small earthquake. The soil suddenly swells tight like a water balloon, and the agrarian water fixture pops twenty-five feet into the air, a column of water blasting out from under into perfect vertical. The ground sags suddenly, relieved from the pressure of water. The asphalt steams and hisses from its cold liquid bath, hot summer heat buried deep in its black. The thirsty desert town suddenly is drowning, drowning, and we have lost our balance with the upheaval of mud, soil, sod, grass, asphalt, half constructed buildings, popping glass, and a very few people– screaming– 2:36am. The town is asleep.
Swirling, breath is precious, difficult, seldom, gone. We cling to the splinters and the sidings of half constructed buildings and my finger joints hurt from their tight adrenaline grip on splintered wood. Asphalt chunks smack my arm, my head, a stream of dark blood pours out but loses its color mixing with the ebullient streams. I gasp in water, choke it out, gasp, and have lost sight of him– and as my fingers lose their slippery grip I hear him shout, “He is an Old Testament God.”
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Bethany MW 