the story of a boy and the fallen world

I am a boy again, in the backseat of the car after church, going home.

Sadly for others, window glass has nowhere near the power needed

to ward off the fallen world outside—corrupted by sin,

the Sunday school teacher said, done in once and for all by

a woman’s flesh and a man’s hungry eye.

The car picks up speed and radio words

tumble and bounce off the floorboards

at my feet like empty beer cans.

Past my reflection and through the blur,

I can see for myself—the world still stands upright,

good as it ever was, and is littered with talismans

tirelessly telling and retelling the first story,

the old, old one made of light:

snakeskins dangling from tree limbs;

dry creek beds and flash floods of mountain memory;

sparrow skulls like Easter eggs filled with leafy green shadow;

the wetness of new mice in hay fields, an avalanche of flesh and eye together;

the testimony of bullfrogs after rain: “We live! We live!”

sky rivers of ravens at sunset

fireflies, oh, the fireflies moving freely between worlds, weightless.

“Like this,” they say again and again. “See how easy!”

and a boy, the one talisman meant to gather the rest

in a cardboard cigar box with feathered corners

and a rubber band wrapped tight against accidental forgetfulness.

A keeper of faith.