Pentecost

I have to ask, he said, on visiting my latest work,

what on earth have you been smoking?

Echoes of those mocking voices, long ago --

"They are filled with new wine."

But no, not drunk, filled, rather, with the spirit --

a convergence zone of blood and fear,
the splash of fire and vapor of smoke, and oh, the noise

poured out like inspiration on the unsuspecting,

and then the voice becomes your own, and not,

and surprising ones can hear and others not --

it's like a flame, which, when it passes,

leaves a burnt out shell, and feelings -- lost yet purified --

earth aches, roots cringe and stretch like toes
and yet can breathe again
and toss new shoots to flourish in the emptiness.