Jubilee

      Billye Okera

           ©2004

When the praises rang

The people in the pews went wild

Crazy wild

Like they did I juke-joint days

In the isle

To the beat of bishop booming

Big bold heaven words

Calling us all from silence

Sitting like God was stone.

When the parish prayed

The people on their feet felt sway

They swayed

The way the did to the chant of drum

The low hum

 Of deacon pleading passions-

Praying us from silence

Sitting like God was deaf.

When they all spoke in tongues of fire

Like fire

The people swept/leapt to the sound

Of Sia-He-Com-A-Sia

And pyre burned bright

As the mountain of God

Speaking us from silence

Sitting like God was mute.

When the choir sang

And, oh, they sang

And mourned in cadence

 Of a funeral dirge

And forged high sound from weary breast

To the boom of organ dreams

 And timbrels.

Calling us from silence

Sitting like God had no song.