Читать книгу Twisted Shapes of Light - William Jolliff - Страница 17

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. (Matthew 5:15)

Just when I’m tempted to believe

that my fundamentalist neighbors

have taken the admonition to heart—

Hope is dangerous, kill it young—

I hike by their church-school at noon

and hear the holy thunder: children

file silently through the fire doors, then

explode like a storm of Bazooka bubbles,

blue plaid jumpers and creased khakis

scattering and rolling like billiard balls

across the felt-green, tightly-cropped park

of a playground, jet-propelled by shouts

that echo with a morning’s elation,

cries as bright and lusty as those of their

publicly-educated peers, maybe more.

The air is electric with the freshest

of flesh, swinging and hanging, even

dancing from the bars of parti-colored,

evangelically-maintained jungle gyms,

while rippling clouds of sweaty freedom

rise over the undulating mass

of limbs, until at two bells they fall

back to the quiet brick, exhausted

but not quite dim, new creations,

the fire of damp cheeks and matted hair

bearing testimony that the lamp

within cannot be wholly dimmed,

even by bushels of the darkest belief.