Last week, those of us in Southern Michigan (who had our eyes open) saw a blinding flash in the sky.

 

First they speculated it was a meteor. The next day they speculated some of the exploded particles may have struck the ground, thus they were meteorites. Then they decided it must have landed in a debris field about 2.5 miles west of the village of Hamburg. I live about 2.5 miles west of Hamburg and so I decided it was the second divine attempt on my life so far. Here’s a little something about the first time.

GOD THREW A ROCK

Upon Seeing A Small Meteorite Land Within Yards of Me

 

I know the cosmic odds against a thing like this.

God threw a rock at me and missed.

 

It whumped into a little hummock of April-freshening earth and

threw steam up like sullen, smokey anger

at having come to rest in such an ignoble place.

 

From across the entire cosmos,

from the very beginning of time,

God made this rock to hurl at me and miss.

 

I can not help but wonder if God missed me on purpose

just to get my attention,

or if he has a lousy aim,

troubled, perhaps, as he is, by bursitis in his throwing arm.

At the very end,

too late to do anything about it,

I saw it coming—

it’s long green tail, glowing, streaking, cupric, downward at me—

phosphorescing in the still night air

for seconds after it slammed into the earth,

spraying its dying red embers higher than the barn.

 

And there it sat,

shaped like an old seed potato,

about the size of a quarter,

asserting by its mere presence that it was no accident.

 

Sometime after dawn it had cooled.

I stooped to pick it up,

felt its heft in my hand,

knew my hand touched what had touched the hand of God,

and I threw it back at Him.

I missed.

 

A few years ago I recorded this poem. There have been a couple of minor edits since then, but maybe you’ll get a kick out of hearing my recitation.