Considering Pentecost’s Sermon

by Josh Huber 

In the dim daylight my office offers, 

I try listening to my candles. 

          Unheard, 

they tongue their canted syllables below 

the constant hum of building sounds. 

I can, 

though, see the twin shadows of a laden 

crucifix (one on my desk) they’ve made judder 

against the blank wall to my left. 

      No, not 

water but fire this time, says the Lord. 

Baptized by the Spirit with wind and flames, 

all-of-a-sudden full with light and heat: 

something to tell. 

    And this flickering full bloom 

foretold before an ascension so quick 

it left the faithful gaping up to where 

empty sky gaped back.

Now if you spit or 

drop a pebble from high up the falling 

body, at a certain moment, slides 

from sight. And you trust, though never know, it 

will strike whatever waits below. Just so, 

the returning’s timing remains unknown. 

So we wait–the Spirit upon us as 

an everlasting conflagration, 

the symptoms of which are supposed so severe 

as to make all question our good sense. 

Incandescent we yet bear witness: 

all shall be well; the arc bends, the wheel turns, 

the world reels towards love. In ash, in dust, 

we do confess, God with us. God with us. 

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