Record Store Disciples

Once, I thought I saw God in a music shop.
He rummaged hungry through old records,
surveying the tracks, dragging His finger
where the needle runs the groove.
After an album passed inspection
He announced the artist and each song
on either side aloud to the store.
Held hostage by his voice, I anticipated
the ensuing selections, ignoring
what He had piled to purchase.
Where I a more meticulous man
I might have noted what God was in to;
I might have glimpsed some secret
hidden from the understanding of man
in the musing of His holy headphones, only now
revealed, God allowing Himself
the indulgence of human-music.
(I imagine now, after the fact,
God digs Neil Young; the beard gives him away.)
But I didn't notice the titles
in His buy-stack. I just stood
transfixed on His lips, waiting
for more matriculation from His mouth.
God, in a music shop, shocked me:
The Bible rewrote itself in front of me,
history now a merry-go-round swirling around
the stationary center of the moment;
His words new revelations
for a set of record store disciples.
Understanding gradually the gravity,
fumbling a copy of Master of Puppets,
my eyes watered and I was suddenly self conscious-
a man crying next to his lady
on a romantic comedy date night.
Moments like that require fog, and a tonal score:
the store swayed under His booming,
the floor hollowed and cracked, we disciples
recognizing lightness and power in our legs
while the ceiling opened in our imaginations,
heaven, sturdy as a stepmother, waiting above,
growing a dance party disco in the clouds.
We all stared at His beard-white mouth pronouncing;
family, community, believers, audience.
Turns out, though, it wasn't actually God.
A fellow disciple explained later
it was just a homeless man draped in tin-foil
with flows of snow-white hair who wandered
in off the streets plucking every Marvin Gaye
album off the shelves he could find.
He renamed each one after a different author:
Here, My Dear became Judy Blume.
Now, I laugh about tearing up,
lucky I didn't see God; if given the chance
I like to think I would have found out
what He listens to: I would have read the stack.