Thursday is for Imperfect Prose: circling the presence

I wonder what marked the moment as the acceptable time for tongues of fire to fall down?

A certain magic word?

What ancient riddle opened the door? Moved the mountain into the sea?

What familiar Spirit fluttered the dead eyelid? Called deep up from deep?

I do not have the word, have not discovered the incantation.

But I've met the Spirit

and I think I know the answer.

I do not know the answer in the way one memorizes a flashcard formula, babbles
incessant technical jargon, wishful thinking, vain repetitions of one-hit wonders.

Not in short-term memory exercises. Not in altar-call professions

sudden inspiration, prickly goose-bumpy revelation.

I do not know the trick to conjure down the flames.

But I studied the dusty photographs
read unfeeling the prayers, practiced the old language on inert tongue.
I slept under the canopy of intercession, squatted in the hallway with the Son,
rocked sweaty in the lap of the Father,
eavesdropped under the door crack the Spirit-guide

and we knew it when we saw it.