Come fire

The hot winds,

the deafening crackling,

the fire descending on them

whipping around the tiny wooden room.

Certain they would suffocate here, together,

the story extinguished

in smothering clouds and billowing light,

had they sensed it coming?

Like a leaf beneath a magnifying glass

or a cigarette beside a match

heating slowly

then smoldering

then flame?

Or had it surprised them

jolted them 

from their ideas of where the story was going? Again.

A sudden explosion and combustion.

Then squinting at each other

as the violent reds and kingly golds

relinquished sight to a gentler, steadier glow;

their eyes reflecting tongues of fire

dancing like reeds on the lakefront,

atop each other’s heads, 

their bodies transformed to candles, 

souls made wicks,

carrying their good to feed a flame.

Was this how the revolution would come,

how justice would be dealt?

Not with raging fire

but with a gathering light?

From the lectionary reading for the Sunday of Pentecost, May 19th, out of the Acts of Apostles: 

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability…

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them…“this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: