Does God sing the blues? Can he sing 'em scat?

By Gale Acuff

We get rain a lot like tears, hot, clouds like

pallors, like the shade on Grandfather's face

five minutes before he died, his eyes as

wide as the mouths of Mason jars.

Then of course to match the day there's night,

never quite defeated, never losing

itself to more than itself. I'm well back

in the rear of the performance though not

as far back as babies yet unborn, if

that makes sense--what makes sense to me is death

that God brings but then He's not always in

a funk--we hear birdsongs and I love you's,

Happy Birthday and Congratulations,

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Amen.

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Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in fourteen countries and has authored three books of poetry. His poems have appeared in Ascent, Reed, Arkansas Review, Poem, Slant, Aethlon, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Carolina Quarterly, Roanoke Review, Danse Macabre, Ohio Journal, Sou'wester, South Dakota Review, North Dakota Quarterly, New Texas, Midwest Quarterly, Poetry Midwest, Adirondack Review, Worcester Review, Adirondack Review, Connecticut River Review, Delmarva Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Maryland Literary Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ann Arbor Review, Plainsongs, Chiron Review, George Washington Review, McNeese Review, Weber, War, Literature & the Arts, Poet Lore, Able Muse, The Font, Fine Lines, Teach.Write., Oracle, Hamilton Stone Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, Cardiff Review, Tokyo Review, Indian Review, Muse India, Bombay Review, Westerly, and many other journals.

Gale has taught tertiary English courses in the US, PR China, and Palestine.