Dave Oliphant’s poem, “Serbin,” is included in a book of his poems, titled Memories of Texas Towns and Cities. ISBN: 978-0-924047. It was copyrighted and published in 2000 by HOST Publications, Inc, 3507 North Lamar Blvd, P. O. Box 302920, Austin, TX 78703. Oliphant began Memories of Texas Towns and Cities in the autumn of 1974 and finished it 25 years later in the fall of 1999. This is one of over 25 books of poetry Dave has published. James B. Hall in New Letters says, “Dave Oliphant is probably the most broadly gifted poet in Texas.” – Ray Spitzenberger
Serbin
by Dave Oliphant
the doors to its church
remain unlocked
whose ceiling is
a celestial blue
electric its chandelier
since lamps emptied of
the kerosene
they used to use
suspended from
a twelve-foot cord
halfway up or down
a white golden-winged dove
its tail feathers all agleam
flies to yet never arrives
at the pulpit level with a
second floor looks down upon
the heads all bowed in prayer
or lifted in song but above &
behind them can never see the ringed
eight-foot pipes blue gold & white
of their sanctuary’s organ built
by those like the one last Wend
leads the singing still
who came to find
a place to worship & found it here
who brought with them
their 1574 hymnal with
its notes all diamond-stemmed
for their services beneath
their trim bell tower
with its white tin siding
& its weather vane yet soaring
children learning fifty hymns
to retain the Wendish tongue
to restore antiphonal song
the ties between Christ & soul
on square white pillars stenciled leaves
impressed in orange patterns
with their painted black designs
of circles & featherings
the marble-like swirls echoing
the organist’s schwissenspiels
weavings around the held whole notes
Bach fussed at for writing those
inherited by these from Gerhard Kilian
he the great practitioner
of that Leipzig-born tradition
of slurs & passing tones
a version of the almighty ground
right out of Mendelssohn’s Fifth
a sound as if of morning’s light
shining through the winter fog
on their trip from Liverpool
had survived the cholera
as through their Singing Society
had too their “Spinning Wheel”
& though it spun for a while
it turns no more
here or elsewhere
as it did before
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Another poem of mine is entitled “Eugene Wukasch, Texas Architect” and appears in an anthology published in 2002 by TCU Press: Texas in Poetry 2, edited by Billy Bob Hill. Eugene Wukasch took me to Serbin to see the Wendish church since he is of Wendish heritage. That inspired me to write my poem on the church. My poem on him is about his heritage, and I have another poem about him when he was in bad health, which is entitled “Strokes.” If you are interested in these other poems, I will be happy to send them to the Research Exchange.
Thank you for republishing my poem on Serbin. Dave Oliphant