I Have not Departed the Faith

 

I Have not Departed the Faith

(“Truly I tell you,” he said, “unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3)

I have not departed the faith;
the faith has departed me.
Once I was a fool and did not mind,
learned love this time, that time, all others love
excelling.

Eventually though I learned the ropes and pinned my
every hope
on ladders I thought were strung to the sky; a
rapture of sorts,
but disconnected from affection or creaturely objections
to environments where mud was excluded.
(Believe me, a little dirt never hurt anyone.)

And so I called this globe earthly and fleshly,
saw the human race erased from dignity and
mortally injured. The fences kept my senses
always suspect and my inclinations always setting
like the moon a hangnail away from nothing new.

I hated tomfoolery and simplicity, though I secretly
longed for play. All was serious those days, so many, many
days, that ringing roses served no purpose because
all fall down eventually.

Presidents would save us; legislation would drive the
grayness from our land. But one win led to another,
and before we could love to clown again,
we invented machinery that ate away every bit
of humanity of any who opposed.

I should have rewritten that. We were the opposition,
and proud of the fact. We stacked our accomplishments high
upon the vaulted ceilings of faulted preachings
and wore red caps to prove we had Made it All
Great again.

I have not departed the faith;
the faith has departed me.
And now I will live a fool again,
walk down the street with Christmas lights
strung from my head to my toes
and a tiny chihuahua who has let
this grandpa fall in love with childhood again.