Drive-Thru Prayer – Candy Nevada

April 9, 2026

I was the patron saint Drive-Thru on the Idaho border, with my hands and my arms beside me, about forty minutes from Payette, and it was late summer and the air was thick and churches were set out in the wheat fields along the road and almost no one visited them, and it was like that for a long time.
And a week ago there he was, the owner of a light bulb empire and he had many ideas and for that they tried all the more to kill him. I was on his side and said let’s just have a hamburger and that Saturday morning I went to Boise for hypnosis and it went well and it didn’t tell me anything spiritual, but there was a flash and then I thought I had never tried Raising Cane’s sauce and it was just Idaho and that was what there was.
I saw it between the gas station and the highway and it wasn’t the road and it wasn’t the fuel but a blue handrail holding the darkness together, and I changed, or I didn’t, and by summer there was something planted early in my mind and I didn’t know what to do with it and it stayed for a while and then it was gone.
And that was one version of Idaho, or it was, and there were ranch houses outside Middleton and wind chimes and lawns gone soft at the edges and there was peach ice vape smoke in the late afternoon and it drifted into the alfalfa fields and it disappeared, and I loved it for a while and then I did not think of it again.
I met people on Palms Highway near the Super 8 motel in Yucca Valley, and the place was pale blue and laid out in thin stacks of California sky, and someone drove through with the windows down and music went out into the town and moved through the heat and along the stucco walls, and it was bright and cracked.
And Pomona had its dining-room smell and it held onto the day. I stayed in a house with cotton on the walls, and the windows were large, and the grass stood close to them and listened, and every morning Bobby came out and let the lawnmower loose, and it moved for a long while and cut what it could reach, and his children smiled, and that was what they did.
I know when sleep wins, I do nothing, it is a kind of violence, and after a while you know, and you know it again, and it is alright, like it was always going to be.

II. God Was a Real Big Thing in Spring
White-wing angel in the trees, a spread-out thing with honey knees,
 and God was big that Joplin spring, a same big thing with quiet wings.
The children gather by degrees, in hats and socks and dirt and leaves, 
and butterfly people did their things, they covered us from bad bad things.
He does not shout or stomp or seize, he only opens quietly, 
a wing-on-wing that covers these, a soft big shape that lets us be.
The girls all stand and turn to see, some hold a hand, some hold a key,
 one lifts a bowl of maybe-tea, one looks away but still can see.
The trees lean in like they agree, in yellow rows and slow and free, 
the ground is full of stay-and-be, no place to fall, no need to flee.
A girl keeps sky inside her sleeve, she says if you don’t leave it leaves,
 a boy counts angels by the breeze and gets the same and more than these.
If something breaks it does not break, it goes to Petal-heaven lake,
 a place that stays for staying’s sake, where gone is gone but does not ache.
We learn the rule of holding things, of tying soft with little strings,
 or else it slips to other-things and will not come back like it sings.
The houses tilt but still say house, the wind goes mouse and not a mouse,
we let the door stay open wide, because the outside stayed inside,
we do not ask what that’s about, we keep it soft and keep it close.

If something comes it cannot stay, the wings go wide and keep away,
a cover-keep, a gentle say, a no-you-don’t, a not-today.

We sing to keep the line in place, a sing-song stay, a same-not-same,
the line goes on past where it ends and comes back wrong and stays our friend,
we stand inside that covered space and do not move and still remain.
And in that held and honey scene, where all is full and nothing leaves,
 in Joplin in that not-not spring, God stays a real big quiet thing.
Black cave opening in a row, a down-down place where children go,
 in yellow skirts and careful bows, with sticks and hats and stepping toes.
They walk and walk in not-fast ways, in line-up lines and quiet plays,
 and God was big those Joplin days, a same big thing that always stays.
One lifts a hat that will not stay, one looks and looks but does not say,
 one holds a broom to brush away the bad bad things that try to stay.
The ground goes soft, the walls go tall, the dark goes near but does not fall,
because the wings are over all,
and something small kept being there that was not there but still was there.

They do not cry, they do not shout, they turn around and back about,
 they keep the line and do not doubt that staying in keeps danger out.
If wind comes in it cannot win, it tries to pull, it tries to spin,
but wings go wide and tuck us in, a hold-us-close, a safe-within.
The cave is deep but not too deep, a place to go, a place to keep, 
like Petal-heaven in your sleep, where lost is lost but still you keep.
One girl said the angel blinked but only on the side you cannot see,
 and we believed her carefully.
And in that dark that is not wrong, they walk and walk and hum a song,
 and all along in Joplin spring, God stays a real big quiet thing.

III. I Saw the President of Hungary in my Dream Last Night
I saw the president of Hungary in my dream last night.

He wanted to conquer my dream, all of it.