Camp Meeting/Flowers of the Field

Camp Meeting/Flowers of the Field

(“If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you—you of little faith? Matthew 6:30)

For the time being, let us assume I am
breakable. Not much of a stretch, that.
And yet when the cracks appeared I
hid them under rebuilt aspirations.

You were angry once, my friend, when I stayed
halfway back in the congregation. Masses wept
at the front (they call it the altar) and you joined them
wetting the moldy carpet with your own tears.
I did not.

I had visited before and come away with knives
piercing my eyes. I had knelt a hundred times and
felt the stare of every soldier who wondered why
I was there. And so I said

No more.

I stayed in my seat. The music wrapped round me,
the glossolalia rose and fell with the crescendos that
swelled
from the well of penitents hoping demons would
leave them alone and go back to hell.
They hoped to escape the flames themselves.

No fault remains but my own. But I had already
paid my rent on nights like that. I would confess
even more
but everyone abhorred what they already heard.
I needed to let God speak a better word while no
one
cross-examined my soul.

So, I am sorry I didn’t repent so openly;
I’m sorry I grow only in the quiet. Two
decades later
I know so much better,
and hope bouquets of kindness

Take the place of tears and bitterness.
My sanity demands it. My spirit has been
restored to its original dimensions.