By Gale Acuff
In Sunday School today because of ice
and snow I was the only student, all
alone with Miss Hooker, my Sunday School
teacher as we talked about the normal
things we talk about when we’re together,
I mean that all of us children and she
talk about, beginning with the Lord’s Prayer
and then the lesson in our workbook, all
about Jesus as a boy going off
by Himself to the temple and showing
the old men there that they weren’t the sole ones
who knew beans about God, and then we sang
“The Old Rugged Cross” and then Miss Hooker
let me pick the next tune, hymn I should say,
so I sprung for “Old MacDonald” because
I like animal-talk and make it damn
good, or is that well, and anyway she
said that they were good but what she meant was
there was a whole slew of critters on board
the S. S. Noah, that gave me a chance
to imitate the lot of ’em, a few
of them anyway, elephants aren’t barn
-yard critters in these parts but I can send
up on them better than even Mel Blanc
and then we sang another song, this time
Miss Hooker picked it, “Rock of Ages” it
was, too slow for me and no animal
sounds and who knows what a rock says but then
Miss Hooker said that the very stones shall
cry, that’s from the Bible, I recollect
it some and speaking of stones if your son
wanted a piece of bread would you give him
one instead, a stone I mean, I say thee
nay–I swiped that from Thor in the comic
book, he’s a god, too, I told Miss Hooker
so but she shushed me and while I was shushed
called him a false god and Odin falser
and said Let’s pray and so we did, the Lord’s
Prayer again, followed by Miss Hooker
begging God to wash my soul as white as
snow–good luck with that, I said, not so loud
that she could hear but God might’ve yet I
kind of fear Him less, ditto Jesus. And
the Holy Ghost. So maybe this is love.
Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in literary journals and has authored three books of poetry. He has taught university English in the US, China, and Palestine, where he teaches at Arab American University.
