No Place to Hide

No Place to Hide

(“If you belong to Christ Jesus, you won’t be punished. The Holy Spirit will give you life that comes from Christ Jesus and will set you free from sin and death.” Romans 8:1-2)

Don’t run away, there is no place to hide,
all is seen, width and full, around the corner,
behind the hedge, in the alley’s dark edges,
in former houses of worship and the present
urges to versions of life inked through long ago.

We are not invisible, but we are well-read,
we are slow to rise to the occasion, quick to
insist the other man pay within half a day
whom we have known nearly halfway home now.

Don’t lock the doors, do not return the mail,
Open the letter, receive the inquiry,
more can be added than what you fear
will be stolen.

When did you begin to fear the equality
that lets you see
the phobias you inherited
are worth less by the hour. Engender
a new thought, at least for you, and

Let it fill the dusty silences, the
shaky dalliances with semi-omnipotence.

Punishment is over, the sentence served,
every prisoner set free by the suffering of Another.
You can stop rehearsing your curved denunciations
of all you do not understand,
or
all you thought you knew by rote just yesterday.

Because, before all time, before a single crime,
the plan was set forth to dam the waters of condemnation,
and let slave and free, prisoner and jury know
(beyond all they had ever known)
that hiding never kept Adam from God’s
longing voice in the Garden.