September Sabbath

        Voices raised, singing
        And then the word:
        prophets in a barren land
        weeping for repentance and reaping,
        a loud cry
        trumpets to tear down mountains,
        rude horned beasts and a red woman
        candles and vials and seals
        and a lake of fire

        Outside the church
        an ever-present prairie wind blows
        Ripe heads of wheat rustle together
        On a distant ridge
        just a gradual rise of land
        a few summer-fattened cattle graze
        A large ever-expanding cloud
        pushes out the boundaries of the sky

        In that pause before combine and harvest

     
     
            by Charles H. Tidwell, Jr, in Blue Buffalo: A Magazine of Recent Alberta Writing, 2.1 (Fall 1983): [25]