confession before easter

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The Confession before Easter

15 minutes. And I would have missed the train to heaven.

No signature against my name in your Confession Register

But here I am.

You look at me and sigh. Then smile.

“How can you smile after this endless outpouring?”

I wonder as I kneel before God and you, his friend.

I open my burden of sins for this quarter,

Father I’ve been bad this summer

Must have been the heat, the maid has been gone a month

Or maybe I wasn’t meant to be a mother of three

Should have stayed single and taken up mountaineering or something

I played truant on 10 Sundays in a row

Saying “the baby cried during mass and Must I go?”

Don’t cringe, Father there is more

I sat home and watched MTV.

I can quote Khalil , even recite his poem “On giving “ by heart

But Giving exhausts one so. The Downturn hasn’t helped.

I thought I ‘d give to charity and all but then I go on a shopping spree

I wrote a poem on the environment, in that I am pagan high priestess

But I piled junk in my backyard.

As you know I completed a course in Divyabothanum,

But shouted at the kids all summer.

At least now the monsoons have started

The other night I woke up to find termites swarming

Under a light I had forgot to switch off in the drawing room.

Standing there in the middle of the night half asleep under a eerie dark cloud of insects,

Hundreds of them dying for a wrong cause.( It’s a wonder this insect isn’t extinct)

And I switch off the lights and rub insects wings from my face and hair

Lie awake half the night. Thinking, Am I living for the right cause?

Or will I die like a termite, growing wings for a night

Only to throw myself at the wrong light and dying for a wrong cause.

But in the morning the sun was all over the garden

The kids playing in night clothes were all smiles

The baby was laughing, the kitchen tidy

And then I sat and counted my blessings and prayed

I cleaned up backyard and then went in to clean my heart

The songs I sang were all hymns, and washing up after dinner

My prayers wafted into the night sky

Hypocrites need some more help, a contrite heart is not enough

So Philipachen when you say mass this evening make it especially sweet

And when Jesus leans to listen, plead my cause,

Tell Him Iam trying but I failed, I am still searching

Tell Him to send me some angels and more sweet rain

Tell Him to keep me tight when I am dazzled by city lights

This evening, rise up on your wings of prayer and touch His feet for me.