He’d floated down from Marathon,
Where he’d briefly harangued the populace,
Telling all within earshot that a great torrent
Would sweep them away part and parcel
(As all the while bright sunshine
Glared off his ancient aluminum folding chair,
But anyone having the least bit of a handle on the lay of the land
Knew the narrow, cranky Tioughnioga
Would jump its banks after a reasonable drizzle,
And the night before had brought rain that would make Noah fret)
And, sure enough, the high water came,
Though with a tad more ferocity than one would expect,
So much so that a young girl actually washed downstream a bit
Before a desperate volunteer fireman
Made a highlight-reel grab to pull her to shore,
At which time the county boys told the street preacher du jour
That it might be in his interests to move along.
He’d set up shop here and there
In and around Watson’s tumbledown industrial burgh:
Outside the huge glass doorway
Of the white-elephantesque state office building,
Too PCB-contaminated to be inhabitable for generations now,
Cracked sidewalks on Henry and Hawley Streets
Where his very survival at least hinted at divine intervention,
Abandoned tanning parlors and spiedie huts
Littering the Vestal Parkway,
Valiantly attempting to put up his armada
Of warped and vaguely rectangular sandwich boards
Festooned with quotes from Hosea and Lamentations,
Music mumbling from his disco-era boom box,
Sounding for all the world like Hank Williams speaking in tongues.
His clientele did not vary much from location to location:
The already converted, stopping to compare misapprehensions
Of some obscure snippet of scripture,
Youngsters on bicycles or skateboards,
Alternately solicitous or mocking,
Depending on how much shine was left on their innocence,
****-heads, all itch and twitch,
Taking a moment to let their pulse rates cool.
His demeanor, if not exactly avuncular, is at least akin
To some gruff but vaguely affectionate distant uncle,
Yet invariably someone walking into some Kohl’s or coffee shop
Will either smirk knowingly in his direction
Or, even worse, ignore him ostentatiously
At which point he is possessed of an inflammatory madness,
A John Brown with no arsenal to lay siege unto.
You can endeavor to avert your eyes
Indeed your very souls from the Truth,
Gesticulating wildly in punctuation of his full-throated wail,
But it will find you, and no grand shopping center,
No expensive car, no gimcrack-laden technological device
Can deliver you from what He sees inside you,
What He knows about you
Better than you could ever know yourself,
And these rivers around you, these Susquehannas and Delawares
And Chenangos shall rise about you in a wave,
Sweeping away all you know, all you have built,
And it will not cleanse your land, but leave it as if scorched,
A fitting wasteland for the doomed!
Before long, some solicitous concerned citizen
Or harried store manager will alert the proper authorities,
And some deputy sheriff or city cop
Will tell him once again to Move it along, buddy,
And move along he does, muttering shibboleths under his breath,
Straggling along in this poor-man’s pilgrimage
To provide some counsel to the ****** and misbegotten.