REFORMATION SUNDAY

Where is your jar to draw with,
A promised flow of water
To never thirst again?

This dry soul's not pretty
My life is as I wear it
Filthy rags
Mark not my pity
But my shame.

One among a brood of vipers
What I made and did not make
Whence, and from whom, I'm come;
Criminals die upon the rack
So justice ends the game.

As a slug dissolves in salt
So ants will come to feast,
Tease me not with deals for mercy
Or bribes for God
That hold no succor 
From Law's campaign.

God's fury my future,
A payment for my past.
Sir, give me this water
Springing up or falling down
Like everlasting rain!

No papal indulgences
This Reformation Day
No clerics script
To cover existential guilt
No hair cloth on skin
Appeases God for sin,
Masochistic self-flagellation
A waste of  pain.

"If you asked of me," you said
Water
That gives life to the dead,
The penitent's proper sacrament
A simple faith to ask.
I need the belt of Truth to grasp
A righteousness not my own
Which is all there ever could be, for sinners such as me.
The Lamb's propitious pain suffices for my gain.

Randy Nabors,
Oct. 31, 2014