This poem is about my experience with a Baptist church as a child and finding God through the natural world. My aunt took me to a Baptist church when I was younger, and I felt like I was a project. If this was how they treated people, how they lived their faith, I wanted no part. Instead, I found God in nature and creativity. I would often spend hours outside in the back garden playing make-believe with my chocolate labrador. There is where I would feel God the most as a child. The peace of the outside, the beauty of nature, and the loving relationship between the dog and me all told me that there was something greater in this world, something of love. In the end, I focused more on the God I could sense instead of the God of rules who used people to collect souls. This poem is a written representation of those memories and experiences.
Finding God
At the beginning I was excited
to spend time with my favorite aunt
to go to her church,
to do what she did.
I entered those dark wooden, Baptist doors
and made my way to Sunday school
to get to heaven,
to learn the rules.
Congeniality marked the congregation's faces
to lure me to salvation,
but the masks were thin,
their falseness showed through.
I knew that she was sincere in her care,
but to them I was a project.
Am I a number?
Am I a quota?
the sparkle in my youthful eyes faded, seeing their fronts.
I wanted no part if that was God.
To a place I loved,
I wanted to go.
Back at home in the garden with my dog,
Sticks as swords and he my great steed.
Here I found my God.
The true God of love.
I think this poem has great contrast to religion versus feeling God. Just because someone goes to church doesn't mean that they can find God -- you have to look for God all sorts of places until you find where religion makes sense to you. I love how personal this poem is and I can really identify with seeing God in nature and animals!
ReplyDeleteI like the concise use of language in this poem. There's power in its simplicity and precise word choice. Your prose paragraph at the beginning is also concise and well-written. What you explain there comes though clearly in the poem as well. Looking at your use of line in the poem--there's an interesting variation of 5-stress lines (pentameter-like), which are the longer one, with shorter lines that roughly seem to split those pentameter lines in half. The shorter lines, then, have the effect of moving the reader from description (longer lines) to interior reflection (shorter ones). This arrangement works effectively in the poem.
ReplyDeleteI love how introspective this poem is. I feel like I had a hard time distinguishing between false and true spiritual experiences as a child, and I like how the poem seems like you're looking back at your childhood and realizing where you really felt God.
ReplyDeleteBobby,
ReplyDeleteI like the subtle and in a way polite criticism of the church and religion over all you explore in this poem. I think the most influential and inspirational religion is that one that you can question and gain truth from.
Very nice job.