Read an Excerpt
Thank Goodness
by Andrea Gibson
(For Buddy Wakefield)
At the end of your ten day meditation retreat
you got in your car
drove thirty peaceful feet
and ran over a bird,
splayed its holy guys on the pavement
like God finger-painting "F U”
across that deep breath you were holding
the way your mother held her first born.
You
thank goodness
were torn from the Bible
the day before they burned it
for the verse about dancing to tambourines.
Once you saw the blood of Christ
on a knife carving redwood trees into church pews.
Now every Sunday morning you hear glaciers melting
and you cry easy as a one night stand
never ever is
when you see the feathers in your rear-view mirror
scattering like prayers
searching for a safe place to land.
Hold me to my word
when I tell you I will leave today,
catch a bus ticket west
just to stand in the center of your highway
blocking traffic 'til every feather's answered.
I've see too many prayers caught in the grills of 18
wheelers
and folks like us
got shoulder blades that rust in the rain,
but they're still g sharp
whenever our spinal chords are tuned
to the key of redemption.
So go ahead world
pick us
to make things better.
We've been building a bridge
through the center of this song
since Mother Theresa replaced the walls of her church
with the weeping cries of Calcutta's orphaned ghettos.
You wanna know what the right wing never got?
We never question the existence of God.
What we question is his bulldozer
turning Palestine into a gas chamber.
What we question is the manger in Macy's
and the sweatshops our children call the North Pole.
What we question are the sixty swollen lashes
on the back of a girl found guilty of the crime
of allowing herself to be brutally raped.
What we question is the idea of a heaven having gates.
Silly.
Have you never stood on the end of pier
watching the moon live up to her name?
Have you never looked in the eyes of a thief
and seen his children's hungry bellies?
Some days my heart beats so fast
my ribcage sounds like a frickin' railroad track
and my breath is a train I just can't catch.
So when my friends go filling their lungs with YES,
when they're peeling off their armor
and falling like snowflakes on your holy tongue, God
collects the feathers...
