no more than
15 minutes.


but those were
the 15 minutes.

in which it was necessary --
to get to the interview.

to get my feet
up the steep
now slippery
slick
wet grass.

to keep from falling
in my interview pants.

i covered my head
from the door of the house
to the door of the car
with the lion king umbrella
that justin got
at the show
on a date with
someone else
years ago.

to keep from frizzing
my interview hair.

to keep from soaking
my interview shoulders.

i squinted into streams of wet
across overworked wipers
and drove slow on sizzling roads
with steam rising from the
scorched blacktop.

to keep from crashing,
sliding or getting a ticket on my
interview afternoon.

the sky stopped it's fuss abruptly just as
i clinked the quarters into the meter.
so i threw the dripping lion king
on the front seat floor.

i knew that if by some chance
it started again while i was inside--
i wouldn't mind wetness after that
in my regular

pants.
hair.
shoulders.
afternoon.

the rain had not the grace to
douse the raging heat,
and had managed to
further thicken the air
so my

only face
was flushed full red
by the time i reached the
interview door.

For the word of the cross is folly
to those who are perishing,
but to us
who are being saved
it is the power of God.

For it is written,

Where is the one who is wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 

For since, in the wisdom of God,
the world did not know God through wisdom,
it pleased God through the folly of what we preach-
to save those who believe.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified,
a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men,
and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers:
not many of you were wise
according to worldly standards,
not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth.

But

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
God chose what is low and despised in the world,
even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus,
who became to us wisdom from God,
righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
so that, as it is written,

“Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

And I, when I came to you, brothers,
did not come proclaiming to you
the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
For I decided to know nothing among you
except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness
and in fear and much trembling,
and my speech and my message
were not in plausible words of wisdom,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men
but in the power of God.