Ins and Outs

Once as a child,
I wanted to be a nun,
believed in miracles and more,
things unsustained in adulthood.

Now, after forty,
philosophies fail to comfort
my mounting fears
Of death approaching.

I grope for comfort in family
history...so few have died...but
they will and I will and
I don’t want to.

Religious messages elude me
or muddle my thinking.
I believe nothing and everything.
I wear a cross.

I bathe in white flowers, feeling
pagan and guilty and uncertain.
Being agnostic is a lot more
comfortable before forty.

***

A FAMILY TREE

The town is only one mile square with a main road that dips as it moves south, then rises five miles later to another hill. Looking back from there, the court house can be seen exactly centered on the hilltop. In spring the marble   columns seem to float on the trees, lording it over the town now hidden in the foliage. Two blocks behind the courthouse, on a treeless corner, sits the First Baptist Church. A grey stone building, surrounded by high black fence, it is the real center of justice and judgment.

On Sunday mornings, when the pastor opens the door for services, all but the first row of pews fill quickly. The front row, however, is reserved for the deacons' board whose members enter together just before the start of services.  They are the controlling powers, these men in the front row. To them, the man in the pulpit is only a hired hand.

According to the old wives' tale, the preacher's son is always the worst behaved child in any community. But the preacher of the First Baptist Church was not yet married. He was therefore presumed to be childless. Perhaps to make up for the absence of the usual target of concern, the local    gossips paid more attention to Marian Moffet whose father was president of the deacons’ board. The location of the Moffet house, right across from the church, kept porch-sitting Marian in constant view so that she made up for what she lacked in looks and talent by what she offered in easy        accessibility. 

It is not easy to tell your mother that you are pregnant at any age. It is harder when you are fifteen and the deacon’s daughter. But somehow Marian had managed that much. After a few “Lord, Lord’s,” her mother, Mrs. Moffet got down to business.

“Who’s is it?”

“Oliver’s.”

“Y’all wanna get married?”

“He don’t. Said I oughta get rid of it. Sides, Daddy’ll have a fit, he finds out.” Her tongue flicked over pale, flaky lips at the thought of her father’s reaction: endless preaching and praying.