Under the ark of sanctuary the elders testify of a time of paths leading down to Catahoula
down to Hickory when rivers ran high with rains.

Praise god we have our baptistery they say but I have seen when they pass through the waters
the knowledge with them.

When they pass through the river they are not swept over for they know the river
even the rivers know their names.

A pale pool behind the pulpit is a slight adumbration.
Nothing of the flow nothing to wash our sins away.

We stand in the midst of them a pale adumbration.
We are a pale adumbration of our forebears who lived always just beyond the river.

In this land they saw the storeroom grow empty.

Once a child was brought to the water.

He was immersed in the nearness of their place in the nearness of their time in the nearness of kinship.

Our elders shed tears for him for on the far bank a rain had washed a drown sheep
caught in a snag of trees ebbing in rushing water.