“Do and do and do…”

John Wesley Weasel

Dear Walter Wangerin Jr.,

I’m so glad you did and did and did, and produced this glorious story, the third and final Book of the Dun Cow.

I’ve been following the milky, marvelous scent of our Cow since the first book in 1978. The much-handled paperback sits by me now as I write to you. The Book of Sorrows (now Lamentations) is not far from me either, but all four of us have gathered to applaud this monumental work, Peace at the Last.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the newest story, which is cool like Eden’s daylight, hot like Wyrm’s underground evil, colorful and delightful as only God’s creation can be.

I love the new characters, the hilarous and quirky dialog, the rugged journey, the beyond-beautiful conclusion, and throughout, your trademark brilliance with personality, plotlines, and painterly use of language.

Maybe the best phrase to hand you is the comment from The New York Times: “It is a taut string plucked that reverberates in memory.” And it is! But it is even more, because this story—the entire trilogy—reverberates with the deepest and highest musicality: the footprints, or pawprints, or clawprints, of God Himself walking by.

Thank you for your profound word-ministry to my life. God bless you kind Walter!

Warmly in Christ,

Rod Butler        

                     

Saturday, May 24, 2014 Arlington, Texas

                                          WOrdTHINGS
                                 in APRIL or MAY  

                                             

                            

                              The battleship in the living room,

                              The behemoth bounding up the stairs,

                              The rocket

                                       fire-blasting here 

                                                                 there

                                                                 everywhere.

                              The boy-quake man-tremor, rumbling the furniture

                                                rattling the windows,

                                                shaking the salt in the salt-shaker

                                                flaring the lightbulbs to 

                                                                 new-found intensities.

                              Story-maker, Music-catcher, Sword-warrior,

                              Video-visionary, Opera-phantom, Comedy-king.

                              No wonder you fire-light the skies,

                              When you are destined to

                              Change your world.

                              ----------------------

                              Sleep now, this Saturday morning,

                              Sprawled out, and making

                              A deep, deep impression in

                                                                                your bed.

All the flowers are blooming  into the room, into the hazy mountains, into the trees

and the forests and the lilacs that sway in the breezes always laughing in 

                                        Springtime

and This is the fragrance of these rain-splattered, pansy-dancing, mist-sparkled,

music-bubbled color-fields, and this is the sound on the driveway, the sound of the

                                        Glimmering white car

yes, tires rolling up to the bushes who bow in and sweep skyward with or without

                                        A breeze:

You enter the hallway, and a whirlwind of life-gardens grow, unshuttering shutters,

unwrinkling wrinkling's shuffling slump, and soaring us full-blown forward, out of

                                        Sleepfall

and into the                Morning.

                     

                   Words slide in, and attempt to speak, then quickly slide out,

                   having found themselves stark and thin-lined in the spotlight.

                   This is because: you come with unsilenced, and resilenced song.

                   Notes slide in, and attempt to sing, then quickly slide out,

                   having found themselves unable to complete the orchestration.

                   This is because: in playing you are not playing, or not only playing,

                   or More: you are playing with More:

                   You are sliding away so that a greater song plays you. Then we transform

                   from listeners to instruments, from dirt-ground to sky-fiber, or higher:

                   From stitchings of bone and flesh to ribbons in spiritual wonder-gust,

                   Enswirled in something unexplainable by word or note or meaning: like

                   Music in prayers, prayers in music-----until a sudden, funny, sneezing

                                                                              POP!

                   And there you are on Skype again, clever and quiet and too far away.

Now

In the clickery moments,

Time eeks forward, slow motion, 

Hollow minutes pass, in a mist, trains going nowhere.

The house is clean, plants watered, meals frozen,

dishes skimmed, lathered, rinsed, returned

and perfectly in place.

And this, though tidy, is worse.

Because I may have wiped away your fingerprint. 

And you are not here to replace it,

with a touch on a cup, a

rhinestone, or my chest, where

a heart floats in silence, 

Wading through slow motion clickery moments,

and breathing the very air of

the letter name

j.

                                           
                                               Strong winds, swirling leaves
                                               Into storm-gale dances . . . 
                                               Leaves never let go



                                   You, wind of great force
                                   Twisting trees, testing buildings
                                   Rush on through my soul . . .



                                                 Rushing force, are you
                                                 Wind or Ocean roaring and
                                                 When . . . can I sail you?



                                    Branches sweep, they bow
                                    Tossed by windy punches . . . or
                                    Dancing in praises?



                                                Dear Wind . . . float me in
                                                Ocean air waves and drive me
                                                Home without my car