Lorenzo Dow under My Daylilies, by John Surowiecki
Posted on April 4, 2019
I. CRAZY DOW
He was the most famous preacher of his time
(his books had thousands more readers than this poem ever will).
Before my garden was a garden,
when it was just dirt and moss, it was saturated
with the desperate piss of camp-
meeting-goers, his followers and fools,
filling our valley like a spring flood.
He lived where I live. I hear him
under my daylilies, the Son of Thunder,
Crazy Dow, sower of raptures, a fertilizer:
he’s what makes them orange, his smallpox scars are their spots.
He was an Abolitionist, Christlike in his poverty, ragged and filthy.
His beard and hair were never bitten by the teeth of a comb.
Everyone was free
to surrender their souls to him. That kind of paradox
my neighbors and I would never fall for.
II. LESSON OF THE FEATHER
Somewhere someone asked him to ask the Lord
to retrieve a stolen axe and bring the thief to justice.
Zo said sure, no problemo. In the middle of his sermon
he reported the theft and said the guilty party was in the congregation,
one of thousands. He said the axe-filcher
had a fluffy white feather on the tip his nose and in a flash
the thief gave himself away trying, in full view of everyone,
to brush his guilt away.
III. ZO AMONG THE TITMICE
The sky was supposed to yawn and he was supposed
to be lifted up and carried away
to an island of inescapable pushes
and pulls, thick with maga trees and pink-
frilled orchids, home to pearl-white swans and friendly black dogs.
Then birds circled and everyone thought this was it, ground
zero, when eagles or hawks were supposed to peck
out his eyes and gag on his lymph nodes:
not these little clowns with spiked heads
and zombie eyes. Who invited them?
This was when everyone
was supposed to follow behind, a river of humanity
flowing upward, everyone weeping, placing in
judgment inner scars and dents.
This was when he would learn if death had a swansong
or if too much of life had been songless for too long.
IV. PEGGY
She went with him everywhere, irreplaceable until
he replaced her, shocking his flock with a request
for marital volunteers. When he drove his wagon through town,
she followed at a distance to show her humility.
He gave away everything they owned, the only thing he left
her was a funny smell in their house that lasted for years.
She didn’t mind it. She’s buried on Burrows Hill, not far
from here, where the roadside’s thickest with daylilies.
John Surowiecki is the author of four books of poetry and seven chapbooks. His last book, Martha Playing Wiffle Ball in Her Wedding Dress and Other Poems, was published last year by Encircle Publications. Over the years, he’s won a number of awards, including the Poetry Foundation Pegasus Award for verse drama, the Nimrod Pablo Neruda Prize, and the silver medal in the Sunken Garden National Competition. Surowiecki’s novel,Pie Man, recently won the Nilsen Prize for a First Novel and was published by Southeast Missouri State Press in 2017. Poetry publications include: Alaska Quarterly Review, Carolina Quarterly, Folio, Gargoyle, Margie, Oyez Review, Mississippi Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Redivider, Rhino, The Southern Review, Tupelo Quarterly, West Branch, Yemassee and others.
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