Sin

Ya know, back then, even Jesus would

have climbed the clock tower,

the steeple of the Elm Street

Church, much as we all did

in more youthful days, when it was forbidden,

sneaking up the back stairs

to the store room of

old chairs and hymn books,

perhaps a Bible or two,

laid open or tossed into a corner;

and finding the trap door and the ladder

up through the ceiling,

up through the clock works,

we climbed, Baptist boys, growing up,

up and out into the open, revealing

the river on one side going ocean-ward and away,

the shipyard and houses below, fixed, keeping us here;

but it was a sin, then,

to do what we had done, Jay and I,

sneaking up to that forbidden height,

forbidden place, and, worse yet, we sinners,

carving our names – desecration! Hell and Damnation! –

among the names of other

boys who’d sneaked up before us

as we did now, adding our names

to prove we’d done it,

done some forbidden act,

a sinful act of disobedience

blemishing that image we wore of “good boys,”

obedient boys, yet a blemish we wore in secret,

bearing our guilt alone, as a medal, a medal earned

with a name carved into the church clock tower,

the steeple of the Elm Street Church.

And ya know, though, I bet if we searched

long enough, hard enough,

we’d find Jesus’ name

carved there, too, His medal

earned, like ours, in this sin

of young boys sneaking, disobedient

Baptist boys, now tarnished and hell-bound,

seeking the forbidden life of sin.