*
From Below, Then Above
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The Chile Cookoff at Borderlands Universalist Unitarian Church, Amado, Arizona, November 16th, 2024
For Michael Karl,
For Jeff Dixon
*
We enter the grounds through the church,
Which is disguised. It repurposed the premises,
Nondescript, as if part of a ranch. No ranch here,
Just nature, consecrated as land left apart and untouched.
*
Stepping in, the amiable ladies invite us to rummage,
Tempting us with cast off collectibles.
Art on the walls, all around, makes a bid on our souls.
Trying to be church virtuous and buy nothing material,
I make a pact: If it is still here on the way back,
I’ll buy that ceramic tray that casts the word, “Dream,”
As well as that CD, “The Best of Maria Callas.”
*
We step out the other side, as if passing a test
To step toward heaven. No saintly heaven, this.
Instead, the grounds are encompassing
One hell of a good time.
*
Just for today, they are repurposed as the causeway to a charitable cause.
A countrified music making twangs in the strumming to my left.
But I dare not sit and hum, bewitched. The chile would all get et.
For ten dollar bills, we are banded with red paper at the wrist
As a sign we are counted. Told, “Here, three counterfeit doubloons, reward.”
Award the wizard behind the recipe, the eager cook.
Famished, we are admitted to a feast to end all fasts.
*
How many booths ladling chile in that horseshoe?
Count em.
We are judging all these chiles. Pause to ponder, do we?
Mas o menos, Most of us are a signal: “Have at it.”
*
Later, our indulgence excused by our critical mission,
“Who Does It Best,” our doubloons all awarded away,
We sit refulgent with comforting thoughts.
A band hammers away at my head without making headway.
I fondly, nostalgically remember that earlier twang.
I look into the crenellations of the stoic mountain ahead.
It says nothing. Nor, does the cloud, nor, the bluing beyond it.
*
Silence.
Until the mountain, the cloud, the sky seize me up,
The better for me to listen
To their imposing if implicit command: “Silence.”
*
“Ancient, we are a universal university.
Yet, thick as thieves together, you ignore us.
The mountain crennelates and crumbles in its resolve to teach:
Be steadfast, as if your words were a lookout onto vistas of vision.
The cloud evinces protection: Be each other’s shade.
That bluing above your heads, out of your depth, invites:
Convive as you will, sober up with this: Think.”
*
“Think. But, don’t be dry with thought, drier than desert dust.
Be theatrical, instead, as all the world’s a stage.
Sing for our attention. Be the music from this sphere.
Use this audience of mountain, cloud, and sky to greet…the universe.”
*
Did I shake myself awake, or was that a friend, shaking me.
Time to go. The band has finished its set,
The drummer stickless, the guitar men macho no more.
Center stage, the singer is fulfilled, her visage raised to the heavens.
We backtrack through the church. Just my luck, my merch is Gone.
Evidently, that ceramic was the dream of someone else,
As was that CD I coveted so. Maria Callas has left the hall.
*
Happy nonetheless, dreaming that countrified strum, I hum.
I remember mi madre, who could whistle her lonesome along.
Her son, he is lonesome no more. There’s a cowboy song in his heart.
As if I am a wizard, the echoes of its notes begin to fly.
*
Steven Golden
November 16th, 17th, 2024
Green Valley, Arizona
stevengoldenpoetry 