Missionaries They sail to places where their congregations have never seen a map to plant churches in jungles, deserts, in rainforests, in countries not easily reached, and sometimes closed. Watches or clocks are useless in many of these places; time is measured in dreams or when animals migrate. Ants or water buffalo can be the timekeepers. Or molting alligators. To communicate with their new flock they must learn to make sounds their ears have never heard or eyes seen. They teach catechumens to recite God's name in different dialects without alphabets. They sing in harmony with shafts of sunlight; no high sopranos here; toucans, hornbills, parrots make up the chorus. They carry rainbows in their Bibles and build ambries decorated with plantain leaves and raise special praying bees for sanctuaries. They use mists and moss to teach Gospel lessons. The know God's gathering places and where to hunker down when storms, earth slides, or floods try to overcome their will to believe. They inscribe epitaphs on bamboo tombstones.
Philip Kolin is the Distinguished Professor of English (Emeritus) and Editor Emeritus of the Southern Quarterly at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has published over 40 books, including twelve collections of poetry and chapbooks. Among his most recent titles are Emmett Till in Different States (Third World Press, 2015), Reaching Forever (Poiema Series, Cascade Books, 2019), Delta Tears (Main Street Rag, 2020), Wholly God’s: Poems (Wind and Water Press, 2021), and Americorona: Poems about the Pandemic (Wipf and Stock, 2021).
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