On Preparing to Open the Bible

Why must I measure my accomplishments
against sick
and dying, the saint, the confessor, Mary
mourning the passage of a son
so superior to ordinary man
the He, according to our Lord, could die for one
and all. I live, and do the best I can.
And yet I worry over this
strange and lasting story
told by a bunch of martyrs. Will I miss
the opportunities of heavenly glory
if I get drunk, and fall asleep tonight
on the couch, stinking like a goat?
I guess I hope
my incontinence and flight
will be construed as human in the end.
I wish to be forgiven. Don’t we all?
Today I heard a friend,
a little boy, got picked up at a mall
and was abruptly sodomized
by some dumb bastard professing love to him.
Tomorrow I must look him in the eyes
and tell him to begin
by going back to life
and the fullness thereof. It makes me sick.
God won’t set things right.
Does He think. “You are much too quick
to judge My ways
when you should suffer like the rest
the mysteriousness of all your days
and nights. Read Me. I know what’s best.”
And so I meditate,
looking out the window into fields,
and wait
to read of Him who healed
the dying, who comforted the sick.
I’d like to think that I’m too smart for this.
But I am lying.
Why, then, do I reject the bliss
of giving in to Him, whom I like nonetheless?
In fact, I am like all the rest,
bewildered, odd – the earth is not enough
for those who wonder what they’re doing here.
I blow my nose,
supposing I have nothing more to fear,
then close
the book which I had flung
back in a rage
to think of that vastly superior age
when Christ came down from the clouds
to drink, and speak, blessing the human figure.
It is not the same.
The butcher, the baker, the unbeliever
hold fast to the things that make them glad
again and again. I am one of them.

by Dennis Sampson