The Leather Hills

The Leather Hills

(“So then, we must each give an account of ourselves to God.” Romans 14:12)

Do you remember when we used to roam
the leather hills?
Green lace trees grew crooked from charcoal trunks
and we would sit in the shade occasionally.
Do  you remember when music floated above us
just close enough to grab the tune? Do you remember,
before we stopped listening?
Do you remember carefree summers, frozen root beer mugs
and using 7-up and crackers for communion?

Do you remember how certain I was, how studied and
discerning? Do you remember when we called Madeleine L’Engle
a heretic and waited in line for the
evangelist from India to push us over with a prayer or weariness
from standing?

Do you know it has been 20 years since we talked,
two decades since the plug was pulled? But,
the sentence came down from above, and without my consent,
an ally became neither friend nor enemy. Do you remember me
being nothing to you?

Do you know I never walked as well as I spoke;
that I tired easily on the hills? Do you know I wept when
I woke in the claustrophobic middle of the night,
that I prayed in the cold darkness to have the demons
leave once and for all? Do you know how I despaired,
and returned abed worse than I began?

Do you know my failures are public, well known among some,
hinted at among others? Do you remember the white blush
when the blood left my face as I confessed it all and begged?
Do you remember the three hour lunch, the tears you shed,
while you told me the story of your beloved, your wife (35)
who died as cancer removed her, and your brave faith.
And I remember how they stood on her grave and expected her
to meet you from under the sod.

Do you remember boxes, assumptions, bosses who made presumptions
that I was much worse than he knew? Do you remember poverty with
children who smelled like war? Do you remember the pocket-knife that
slashed the back pew in the hands of one of them? Do you remember
the never again pronounced so mightily?

Can you imagine, my account will be incomplete? I’ll delete the most
unworthy offenses. Can you imagine, so will you? Or, knowing nothing
more than we know here,
will we dismantle the fences and go walking again

On the leather hills where the spring of healing spills
the last thing we’ll ever remember?