Where that old bait shop was by Potter's Creek
is now the First Communion Church of Christ.
The Pastor gives his sermon every week
over by where they kept the livers iced.
The smell of minnows still hangs in the air
along with words of redemption and sin;
the odor's just a cross they have to bear
who want to learn to be fishers of men.
The Pastor uses God's love as a lure
to draw them in, and often that works well;
but he can also howl at those impure
whose souls flop toward the frying pan of Hell.
For most folks, worms and spinners get the bite;
but now and then you need some dynamite.
4 comments:
Excellent Easter pome. Reminds me of a fisherman's mass I used to attend with my grandfather down by Bennett Springs when I was a kid.
This was inspired by an actual church that resides where an actual bait shop used to be near Lake Hamilton in NW Arkansas. I've never been in the church, but when it was a bait shop I frequented it more than once. Seeing this corrugated aluminum shoebox-shaped building transformed into a chapel (complete with steeple!) just pulled the poetry out of me. :)
Lake Hamilton would be in SW Arkansas, would it not? Or are there two of them?
My bad--I meant to say Lake Wedington...but that's wrong too. The name of a road in NW Arkansas that goes near the bait shop I'm talking about is "Wedington," but the actual LAKE near the bait shop is "Bob Kidd Lake."
Sheesh. Let's just call it Potter's Creek and be done with it. ;)
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