I till the ground of my soul with worn hands.

Little turns up save the same rocks and bands

Of roots rooted in habitual sin —

Oh God! what a languishing spiral I’m in.

My spirit lies trammeled down in the dust,

Sickled with anger and pregnant with lust

And tired vain lying and try as I must:

My oily sin-levers are spotless of rust.

My confessing words haven’t changed in ages —

It’s all the same story from all the same pages.

My conscience reads like the back of a hand,

And even my sorrowing soliloquy’s canned.

I sneak in the worst sin after the first,

Vaguely recounting what I’ve lately rehearsed.

I hunch low in shame behind the wood screen

And muffle my voice and, chastened, come clean.

What’s wrong with me? Acting like I’m thirteen.

“For these and all my past sins: I repent.”

Had to go twice once, having phoned in my Lent.

Of course the priest has heard it all before,

And doles out a penance as I stare at the floor

And mumble contritely to settle the score.

But then.

But then the Spirit pours out through the grate,

In absolute terms and mops up the scene.

What can remain of my sad, downcast state

When God himself wills that I be made clean?

“You’re not the meter of my mercy, child.

I breathed “Be Light!” and hymned the stars to spin!

I AM! who hurled the spheres and heavens wild!

My Word can meet the measure of your sin.”

Then dew drops of grace become deluging rains

That level my mountainous pride into plains

And fill up the skin of my soul like new wine.

Floating out of the box, I skip past the line —

Shriven and gleaming with new penny shine.

Brian Fink herds middle-schoolers and milk goats in and around Lansing. He and his dear wife live on a small hobby farm where they raise all manner of domesticated animals, including a growing brood of small and medium-sized humans. They are members of the Church of the Resurrection.