Why Servetus Had to Die
“Goddamned reprobate!” Pappy Cal
pumping
like a preacher, chasing the speckled hen back
towards
a damp afternoon in the sweltering tarpaper coop.
Thus
is inaugurated the Twelfth Kansas Revival.
Up
the hill, in the big house, stacks of saucers
rest
dust-free in the gleaming oak breakfront,
their
cups, hanging up above on brass hooks,
shiver
like silent ranks of martyred heretics.
The
saucers wait impatiently for the science fiction fad
that
will make headlines of their humble designation,
while
Bartholomew -- the one we dubbed “Weasel” -- regards
his
broken cap gun and his dead hamster with nostalgic
empathy,
and stoically returns to composing his memoir.
But
no, that’s too easy. Those saucers wait to be dropped
or
thrown -- broken -- for the release of their voices;
for
their kiln-hardened bitterness at long last to be spoken;
edgy
and cutting; musical, strident, impassioned, verboten.
This
was all material for a novel never written
by
a woman named Robinson, though its composition
was
predestined according to sometimes reliable
communicants
of Welch’s and Wonder Bread,
at
least one of whom was the humble possessor
of
an alliteratively tolling Doctor of Divinity degree.
But
that was in Idaho
peopled
by Munchkins in faded bib overhauls;
not
this Ozian Kansas plagued by farmers that fly.
And
returning we see Cal
unable
to shove it back in where the eggs all lay nested.
That
persnickety hen, although wings were provided,
refused
finally to flap them, to soar towards safety.
Thus
did she die: a victim of scruples; sacrificed to her pride.
Pappy
Cal
for
the Weasel prefers to make cryptic hen scratches
in
his little red notebook -- his stiff pet there for company --
than
to scratch in the dust, so to sweat out a livelihood.
The
Weasel might well have had Robinson’s sympathy --
but
son, this ain’t Idaho
squealed
as he rolled away, while a flying saucer chorus
in
their pieces and shards took up counterpoint harmonies.
After
sundown the porcelain was swept up and discarded.
We
had a fine supper of roast chicken with gravy.
We
then sat in silence and listened most solemnly
while
Bartholomew read from his Renaissance diary.
Duty
done, Pappy Cal snored like Noah in his library.
X
