Redemption

The black soul of a sinner,
in a numbing amphetamine haze,
listens to the screech of bats
and considers his end of days.
Sitting in the suicide dark
in Marion County, Tennessee,
he has followed the stumbling ghosts
of the Chickamauga Cherokee.
He listens to the whispering water
tempting him in that cave
where he thinks no one will find him
to lay flowers on his grave.

Yet, something happens to him
at the depths of his despair
a flame, he will later call God,
engulfs his body there
and he crawls out of the tunnels
into the rapturous light -
saved from the darkness
and given a cause to fight.
Trial and tribulation
saved the man in black
and led him to redemption
in the cave at Nickajack.