Nashville's Whit Smith makes his debut at the Sept. 8 Poetry Night at the Blue Chair.

Mindy Melton at Sept. 8 Poetry Night.

Musician Linda Heck reads poetry on Sept. 8.

Sewanee junior Spencer Hupp reads at the Sept. 8 Poetry Night at the Blue Chair.

Uzzah

You stumbled

You tried to save it

The ark

The sonic drive-in fountain drink

From tumbling

Cursed your son's clumsiness

As he reached, and missed. 

What is it worth saving the floor

Of a Dodge Caravan 

In the place of a little boy's feelings?

He's gotta learn somehow

And so do I

How to be a son

How to be a father

How the Holy Father could be a father himself

When he kills his children

Arbitrarily

For reaching out to steady his cradle

The empty seat between the cherubim

The invisible man who empowers his judges to

Genocide the Hittites, Amelilkites, 

the Cherokee and Chickamauga who taught us 

How to live on this holy mountain.

--- by Charles McClain

2 Samuel 6:3-7

They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it.  David and all Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with castanets, harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God.