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

Pentecost
Joseph Ignaz Mildorfer
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

circling the Presence
by Tamara Hill Murphy


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.