“Revival” was written after my grandmother told me about going to a snake-handling church when she was younger. This was probably in the 1930s, and the church was in the Appalachian mountains. She wanted me to write her life story, but I don’t think she gets what that entails. Still, I should have done it, and should still try to do it. I loved to listen to her talk to me about her life and the hardships she had endured, and I always wished I had recorded it but I never did. She’s very old now and I know she doesn’t have much time. When she goes it will tear me apart. My mother has been dead for a very long time, and my father is probably dead (and good riddance). Anyway, this poem was published in a magazine called “Penumbra” and collected in my chapbook “Psychoentropy”. I hope you enjoy it.
Revival
They share the taste of strychnine,
liquid faith like crystal purity,
bottled in a mason jar
scented with the ghost
of last year’s peaches.
Dusty boots thump,
and patterned skirts swirl,
keeping time with the choir
of shivering tambourines,
as they cry with broken voices
of the rapturous divine.
The Reverend handles serpents,
armed with shining words of God,
and preaches fervent sermons
with the cadence of
the hissing snakes,
sliding coils through grasping fingers
scarred with memory of sin.
He sways,
moves with strange conviction,
and teaches salvation
to the undulating devout,
singing in blind ecstasy
in obsolete tongues.
They dance,
caught in serpentine embrace,
anointed by the Spirit
with sacred revelations,
as the congregation burns,
wrapped in spiraling religion.
~Julie Shiel
