Sackcloth and Ashes

You knew this very well

when you were a teenager,

even if the words themselves

were not a part of your vocabulary.

Remember that fashion statement

that you had to beg to be allowed

to make/purchase and/or wear –

the thing that your parental units

truly abhorred, and on which they relented

only after a pleading and promising

so lengthy that the item in question

was nearly rendered out-of-date?

Remember how powerful

and free it made you feel –

how deliciously rebellious

you were in it - how independent?

But then there was that time

when you knew you had crossed the line

in one or more other areas –

not just crossed it,

but spray-painted that line into oblivion

with the graffiti of your wild oats.

You woke up one morning

with the realization that today

was a day of reckoning;

the day when your indiscretions

would come to light.

You knew that, whatever you chose

to wear that day, it would NOT be

the aforementioned cool clothes.

The clothes you picked for that day,

however they looked and felt,

were your sackcloth and ashes,

symbolic of your submission and contrition.

Hear our humble prayers, O Lord! 

Photo by Todd Jenkins

© 2014 Todd Jenkins