The Red Raging Waters

The Red Raging Waters


For weeks on end it has rained in Texas
Sending the Brazos miles beyond its banks
Where it rises even now under dark Texas skies

Over the wooden floor of a bottomland Baptist church,
Floating creaking pews shaped with the aching buttocks
Of generations, the wild Brazos rising higher yet

To the stained-glass robes of the Apostles,
Soaking the feet of Jesus and lapping the elbows
Of His uplifted arms, creeping up the pulpit

On whose open Bible coils a fat diamondback,
The red raging waters of the Brazos
Bringing to sweet communion the serpent and the saint.


Larry D. Thomas


(from Amazing Grace; first published in The Texas Review)
Posted over on The Texas Poet