About the Prayer Meeting poem . . .

I wrote the poem below in February of 2002. The inspiration for it was, in part, a visit I made with Dan, years earlier - when I was still in college - to the Lariat Church of Christ in West Texas. I hesitate to identify the congregation, because the details are not intended to be accurate or specific. For instance, the Lariat building was a little brick building, not clapboard; and I didn't know any of the people by name (Brother Milo is not meant to be the Brother Milo some of my readers from Oregon may remember. I chose the name because Milo is an alternative name for the grain sorghum grown in West Texas.) But the intent of the poem was to capture the simplicity of the service, the sincerity of the farm folk, and the hot dustiness of a West Texas summer.