When We were Holy

When we were holy
I was just a kid.

The preacher pranced
on the camp meeting stage
in a building so large it
resembled Noah's Ark
left upside down to dry.
Emotions came in waves,
washing over us as we
sat passively on long
benches of wooden slats,
like a multitude of life boats
bobbing on a troubled sea.
His voice rose and fell,
whispers and shouts,
a Bible flopped open
in his raised palm
like a dead bird.

When we were holy
a young man ran the aisles
leaping and whooping with abandon.
An old man shuffled along
shaking a hanky over his head,
his eyes closed and tears
streaming down his cheeks.
The women in long dresses,
hair up in buns or beehives,
fanned themselves furiously
in the late summer heat
while kids looked to escape
into the sticky night air
and make mischief among
a maze of one-roomed cottages,
their laughter stifled in the dark.

When we were holy
the power to see other's sins
was granted to us,
tell-tale signs to distinguish
sinner from saved.
We were not like them,
the Bible told us so.
We who with one prayer
had been magically transformed,
traveling to church
three times a week
secure in the knowledge
of our personal salvation,
even as our hearts
withered in our homes
hidden behind drapes of denial.

When we were holy
I was just a kid.



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