Mid Year

After the chilling start
that left us uneasy
and braced for worse,
March arrived.

Seventeen years after the clampdown on alcohol
when impoverished vendors
furtively brewing spirits in jungles
were chased down, dragged into courts
and jailed, with babies strapped to their backs
while at weddings and celebrations
of the rich and well-connected,
liquor flowed, the red kind, always the rich red,
prohibition was lifted.

We waited
for the streets at dark
to be peopled by drunks,
staggering, delirious, out of their minds.
It didn't happen.

Kelkang happened instead.
Crowds upon crowds
flocking to the tiny village
to drink of the spirit,
for in the last days, I will pour out my Spirit
on all people. Your sons and daughters
will prophesy, your young men
will see visions and your old men
shall dream dreams.

In the churches in the big city,
drums beat urgently
voices rise in worship
bodies whirl like dervishes,
and when the euphoria
does not, will not, abate,
they take to the streets.

Yes, in May, warm, sultry May,
they walk the streets by night,
singing, dancing, praying, chanting,
puncturing the air with cries of hallelujah,
some so delirious they can hardly walk straight,
drunk on the power of the spirit.

As with every revival of the spirit,
darker forces awaken too,
undeniable testimony
a power is at work
we don't all fully understand.