Relic

Thinking about Kentucky, and all the old things out of which our oral history grows.


Salvation still lives
On the forest floor
Bound up in patina,
Sheathing the old
Claw foot tub like
The shiny lining of a
Tide battered shell.
It has rested there
Since before my
Memory, the tub,
A motionless
Ship clogging the
Narrow vein of a
Mountain creek.
Many times have I
Passed it, walking
With my mother.
She takes quick breaths
Amid bewilderment.
My grandpa was
Baptized in that tub.
That was the story-
And I forget how the
Tub made its passage
From a house to
This joint in the
Mountain to become:
A trough for the cattle,
A vessel for rain,
A small rusted dam
Covered over with
The things that burrow
Into the promise of
Life everlasting.
Jesus is found even
In the loneliness of
Places.