from the collection of Jim Linderman
It is a book of photographs,
postal cards some of them,
of people gathered at a river
to witness and to be baptized.
In this one, nothing at the horizon
rises higher than the dark, open
umbrellas, like little clouds,
some ladies hold against the sun.
At least a hundred people:
men in hats and coats, girls in white.
Only the boys sit on the ground
in bunches on the trampled bank.
Sky and water have both the same
pale splotched sepia wash so that
the people ranged along the river
seem set upon a shelf in space.
They are the whole congregation
suspended, still, holding their breaths,
bathed in light of the noon-time sun,
their shadows under their feet
forever. Maybe forever.
They look to their brethren, in white,
and the preacher in the river,
waiting on the Holy Ghost.
In the placid, waist-high water,
twenty-seven young men and women
standing in their blurred reflections
have turned to face the camera.