A Line from a Wallace Steven’s Poem

They learned

how to

modify the moan

or maybe

it was

the moon.

One seems so

unbelievable

and the other

 so mundane

a word that isn’t,

by the way

neither part

mun or dane

though Danes are common

enough.

I wonder what

They would

change

the moon to?

Or even

the

moan

Though as a boy

I went to a holiness church

And at the old camp meeting

Sometimes my fellow saints

Oh yes, we called ourselves saints, no pope needed

Would run the aisles, jump the pews, twirl a hanky in the air while doing either or both, hands in the air, often eyes tightly closed and make all sorts of less than joyful noises. I loved them all, the people, not the noises, and feared for their safety as they ran, hands in the air, hanky twirling, wailing and chirping and tiny little whoops, eyes closed blind running flat out, like “Jesus come” on the concrete aisles and wooden, splinter filled pews. Never saw one go down, but always feared I would. Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, and later on in the service, a few yips and hollers and pure thin high pitched whoops escaped from the most dignified ladies in long cotton dresses buttoned to the neck and bespectacled, balding men, in the black suits, in the unairconditioned Pell City, Alabama summer heat of an open tabernacle on the hillside, amen.

Was that the moan?