Revelators      For Gillian Welch and David Rawlings Andrew Jones In a black house dress, hunched over that full-bodied blonde guitar, her strumming is persistent, her rusty hair sways over pale skin, and she keeps time with her right foot— cowboy boot twisting out mythical ashes. Her high-lonesome whisper calls to me a gospel ready-made for my ancestors buried in Wisconsin soil, ready-made to direct me to grace. His nasal vocals fall not behind or in front, but receive hers. A grey-suited marionette shaking loose the strings on his parlor-sized archtop, his toes staked to the wooden stage while his body rolls with electricity. With his eyes closed under thick brown bangs, his long delicate fingers wrench and press the bronze strings so far down the neck it is nearly a sin. Sing to me again, that line of Lazarus waiting behind the window shade to reveal his scars. Pull me through that hymn book so worn, so thick with devotion, filled by allegory and melody. And I'll sing, I'll testify to this haunted pair on the bare stage in a white, domed marble hall as still as a mausoleum.

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