Blue Sky

Everyone he knew believed in God.
They believed in cake batter.
They believed in spirit levels.

Even when the Ford Torino
went down the bank to the creek
and three people got where they hadn't intended to go,
one a little girl,
yea, even then.

Because we make mistakes doesn't mean God does.
The tall grass beside the creek was mashed flat.
There was one woman's red shoe for a slender foot.
No one thought to pick it up.

No one said the sky was only blue and empty.
That terrible canopy was thunder full
of the hot hating of sin.

Little horny heads darted in the shallows.
The devil's darning needle flitted to the joe-pye weed.
Jarflies hummed and people loved a good afternoon shower
and the air after, rinsed, the leaves ticking.
What more proof did you need?
Would we have sweet peaches?
It's a green world we've been given.
The creek sang because of the rocks, the spill around them.

Michael Chitwood
Shenandoah
The Washington and Lee University Review
A Portfolio of Appalachian Poets
Volume 55, Number 1
Spring/Summer 2005

Copyright © 2005 by Shenandoah:
The Washington and Lee University Review
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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