NO HIDING PLACE

Do we ever lose the terrors of childhood? The older I become, the more I doubt it.
This short poem was written during a heatwave in France in the late summer of 2019 following a visit to a village church to escape the oppressive heat.

NO SANCTUARY

Avoiding forty-two degrees,

I slip inside and feel the chill

and smell the old familiar reek

of cassocks and of deep unease.

I sit, almost against my will.

Is this the sanctuary I seek,

here where my childhood fears reside:

eternal punishment for sin,

and fire far greater than the sun?

I rise and hurry back outside,

feel noonday sun scorch my pale skin,

then stride away, tempted to run.

Behind me, from a Cross, inside,

His face stares down, the thrice-denied.