Triple Epiphany

 

A  priest -- an imam -- and a penguin:
walk into a bar.

 

(Let us pause, while we contemplate that.)

 

Each has vowed to order a drink that will challenge his faith head-on.

 

~

 

The priest orders a plain glass of water -- even though this is a bar.

After a moment of silent prayer, 

he raises the glass.

 

And just before the liquid hits his lips,

the Holy Spirit intervenes,

changing the water to wine.

 

The priest sighs and gives thanks.

 

~

 

 

The imam, biting his lip, goes ahead and orders a glass of wine.

His hand trembles as he lifts it -- but then, remembering his faith,
grows calm:  and in iron resignation,
drinks.

 

But again, that same saining spirit, that erst intervened,

now changes -- ere the drop upon the lip --

the wine into water:  thus sparing him sin.

 

The imam heaves a sigh and gives thanks.

 

~

 

The penguin orders a glass of orange juice.

He lifts it in the “To your health” gesture  to his companions,

then downs it in a draft:

 

and sits back;  sighs, in refreshed contentment.

 

The priest and the imam  exchange puzzled glances.

“But -- what -- did the orange juice change into?” they ask.

 

The penguin shrugs contentedly. 
“Just orange juice,” he says.

“I take the things of this world as they come,

exactly as God hath made them.”

 

 

MARCH CLEAN-UP

 

Spring arrives with tentative steps, promising flowers, but (bar the occasional crocus, scarce, and soon gone) not delivering yet.  The died-back, low-grown lawn is now revealed to be a dozen species, all of them, even the weed ones, disdaining to thrive in certain mangy patches of bare dirt.  The leafless trees branch shamelessly into wicked fingernails. The leaves pressed into mud, banning the grass, are as attractive as smashed cigarette packs.

Walking it, boots sinking in muck, scooping up severed tree-parts as from a body-strewn battlefield.  Sweeping scraping raking   twig-lengths, clammy grass-thatch, and stubborn sweetgum seeds. Some spring.

It is, in this, like a very baby: newborn, red and runted, face screwed up in rage, but nurtured, soon smiling, blooming, fattening, filling out.

So I diaper the flowers, and change the lawn, with patience.  Nature will do the rest.

Impending weather

 

 

that baleful and livid tint

predictive of a storm

-- Washington Irving, “Mountjoy”

Incoming

 

Sunbeams were still melting through his window-curtain,

or were thrown  with late lustre

on the chamber-wall.

--  Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables (1851)

 

 

Afternoon sunlight   fell full on the hill

-- James Gould Cozzens,  Ask Me Tomorrow (1940), ch.5