White Into Black

Sin.

Freed

 

into that darkened sky—

Friday.

 

How can one be born

when one is old:

 

washed—

in the flood from His side,

 

beneath the piercing sword?

Surely

 

I will abandon my watery grave—

alive:

 

pale as ancestors, plunged

into its flow—

 

black as my Jesus, comely:

a bride.

 

 

Who Could Possibly

Enjambment is to poetry

what syncopation is to music,

 

a chapbook to a book

what a poem is to prayer.

 

So who could possibly detect

what would be missing?

 

Who’d say, “chapbook,”

and mean lust in a loveless life?

My Rejected Billy Graham Story

A few years ago, our local newspaper put out a call for stories of personal encounters with the famous North Carolina evangelist Billy Graham.  Mine was among those not selected for publication.  Such is a writer's life—more rejections than acceptances (even without pay).  I saved the story, of course.  So here is my Billy Graham story.

Widespread publicity and large-scale preparation: these are the elements upon which the success of a Billy Graham Crusade depends.  Careful attention to even the smallest of details ensures the success of a massive public event.  Yet when Graham occupies the pulpit of a church on a Sunday morning, the event takes on a more intimate air (although I am sure that considerable preparation still takes place).  Such is my memory of the Reverend Billy Graham.

I once heard Graham preach in a mid-sized Presbyterian church in
Charlotte where I was living and where Graham has familial ties.  When word of mouth spread the “rumor” that he was coming, enough people just “showed up” to fill the sanctuary and two overflow auditoriums.  Forget advertising.  My husband and I were glad to be seated in the main sanctuary where Graham spoke.  People in the other rooms saw him only via closed-circuit television on large screens.  Bigger than life as a living, yet semi-mythic persona, Graham seems somewhat “smaller” in the less spectacular setting.  Yet his voice was the same, as was the force of his sermon.  The Sunday morning service ended in characteristic manner: the invitation both to salvation and to the life of service was extended as the choir sang the familiar “Just As I Am.”  It was the expected (Graham’s) trademark altar call.

Forgotten details seem unimportant.  All of this took place about 1970, and many of the particulars faded from my recollection long ago.  But I fondly recall shaking the hand of a man who has left a deep imprint on Christendom world-wide.  I would not falsely claim that I “know” Billy Graham, but what I do possess is a lovely memory of a Sunday morning service where I heard him preach.