Here's another quirky poem I like, published in several journals, based on a true life experience as I visited my in-laws in Indiana. In this day and age of polarizing blue/red states, conservatives and liberals, this poem expresses a bit of the category-busting opportunities that often surround us…
Why I Love Fundamentalists
I was playing basketball at the corner hoop
in Madison, Indiana, stroking the ball
like it was the grace of god on asphalt
in the parking lot of the Nazarene Church
when he cornered me, the preacher
guarding my escape till he could find
out who I was
just visiting my father-in-law
down the street
and his face lit up like Christmas
wanting to know if I knew the Lord
or was I lost, so I faked left
my father was a Nazarene preacher,
I’ve got several going back
generations on my mother’s side.
He warmed to the task of finding out
if I was walking with the Lord now,
so I started dribbling fast but couldn’t
escape the fact that at that moment
I was the center of his whole world,
he felt my life for all eternity
hung in the balance of his broad hands—
and that my next decision would be
the most important one I’d ever make.
This is a rare experience in life, to be
so fully in focus, someone waiting
on your next act with each breath
and I basked in it,
but didn’t want to lead him on unduly,
so took a shot from beyond the three-point arc
swish
and grinned, saying
don’t know if I’m exactly walking
with the Lord, but he’s sure running
fast trying to guard me.
The preacher smiled back as I jogged
down the street, uncertain
but thinking he had maybe
changed the life of one more soul forever
and for those few moments
when he and I were the only two people
who mattered on the face of the earth
he was right.