Deliverance In Missouri

 

Deliverance in Missouri

Springtime before the fall of America

Once upon a time I saw heaven -
Missouri, April 1969.
It lasted an evening’s dusk –
the seeing of it, that is.

Driving south to the town of Jenks,
to visit an Oklahoma oil well,
Dad behind the wheel –
the old Pontiac Wildcat.

The sun set beneath Missouri rolling hills –
God’s springtime arboretum for angels and fairies
dancing in pre-psychedelic images of Fantasia
with wild cartoon animals who grinned
a genuine star-spangled greeting.

Glen Campbell strumming on the radio:

 I clean my gun
and dream of Galveston.

Spring sprang in this pubescent America
west of the Mississippi.
Midwestern hospitality sang out
at a Best Western motel like a
Rogers and Hammerstein musical;
hospitality that was ambushed and
raped by the Vietnam War,
an apocalyptic can of worms
that would kill all that was good in America
by revealing all that had always been bad.

On this day in heaven though,
an orange setting sun
pasted spring-green farmlands gold
as we pulled into the country motel.
I sat in the car quietly with mom,
she, humming softly to herself
while dad procured accommodations.

Whatever it was that was good,
was good there in Missouri in 1969.
The sun was setting upon southern bliss
while young soldiers tromped through swamps
somewhere in Southeast Asia.
They tromped through those swamps
to keep the rolling hills of Missouri safe;
safe for segregated tract homes,
safe for shopping malls
safe for furious, rushed, consumer driven frenzy,
safe for a thousand deluded voices bitching
about how good things were
before unsavory someones stole their jobs
and were allowed to commit crimes
and spread demonic debauchery
right there in that sleepy motel parking lot.

Yes, I knew of End Times even back then,
even as a child,
even before I found LSD
and Dylan and The Dead,
I saw it etched into the fabric of hypocrisy.
But never had I been given a glimpse of deliverance
until that early evening with my mother
in the womb of heaven’s springtime.