RED STICK WEDDING – BATON ROUGE
When you get married at the Alligator Bayou
in the middle of a Louisiana swamp
it is well to expect some magic
When you get married on the anniversary
of Granny Jean’s death in her 100th year
you can pretty much expect she’ll be here
The sky cracking open with lightening
just as the preacher starts preaching
and the thunder and rain and hail
rattlering off the big tin roof
all through poem and ceremony
might have happened anywhere
But when the wedding vows slow
that rain to a stop, so we can go out
on the flat bottomed boat at dusk
come around the corner and see
Two cypress stumps fifty paces apart
struck by the wedding party lightning
burning like twin candles and flickering
firefly sparks against the night
we know we’re not in Kansas