This is what the poet searches for
The moment in every day that Satan
Cannot find
Some of my ancestry were Amish
Until one day in the 19th century
When my progenitor added a wooden back
To their buggy. His wife had a bad back.
She couldn’t ride to church without it.
The church elders ruled that such an addition
To the standard buggy was not plain
They instructed him to remove it.
I imagine the words that passed between them
Were not kind. Harsh guttural exchanges
Perhaps reverting to the vulgar German.
When my own father absconded
With my young mother after their marriage
And headed for North Webster, IN
For the Glory Barn and entered the church
Of Hobart Freeman and his Faith Assembly
An analogous confrontation was fated to take place.
During a visit to our home the church leaders
Discovered that my mother had the works
Of Shakespeare and Arthur Conan-Doyle
And Bram Stoker on her bookshelf.
They pronounced that she carried
A literary demon inside herself
Warning her of the danger of idolatry
Which accusation has turned out to be true.
Such a demon I find has transversed itself upon me
And long after my father broke with Hobart Freeman
Using perhaps the plainest Pennsylvania Dutch
This demon continues to express his serpent seed.
3 comments:
Hobart Freeman was a used car salesman who decided to start a Christian cult, called Faith Assembly near Syracuse, IN. In the early seventies his church worshiped in a barn known as the Glory Barn, and followers were known as Glory Barners. My own father was only 20 years old when he ran the wiring on the Glory Barn. I was born when my father was 21.
Freeman was also a scholar and his doctoral thesis was published by Grace College Seminary, Winona Lake, IN. Many of his tracks are available on the internet.
Members of Faith Assembly were coerced into making a show of their faith by not relying on medical science but prayer for healing. Of course, every show of faith is disingenuous. This practice resulted in several deaths of children in the congregation and several lawsuits were carried out against the church.
Hobart Freeman died December 8, 1984 of gang green, resulting from an untreated blister on his club foot. Don't say there is no such thing as poetic irony.
I really do get my literary bent from my mother. I remember many days as a kid where I didn't want to go to school so I pretended to be sick and just stayed in bed reading from her bookshelf--bad habits are learned young. She was also a librarian and I was basically raised in a library from ages 9 through 14. One day I checked out everything in the card catalogue with the subject heading: Erotic, and the lady who checked me out called my mom--busted.
Can't find any documentation online that Hobart Freeman worked as a car salesman, but I remember that from somewhere.
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