Church<\/p>\n
Our church was all brick, no name on it
\nand no stained glass. Every few years
\na new preacher took over and tried to make us sing.
\nOne told us Wile E. Coyote\u2019s lifelong quest
\nfor the Road Runner was like us hungering for Jesus.
\nHe said we all know Coyote never gets
\nthe Road Runner. We said that\u2019s right. But no.
\nNo, my friends: one time, Coyote
\ngets exactly what he prayed for. That skippety
\nRoad Runner gets fat on radioactive birdseed
\nand this seed is the seed of Godliness, our Road Runner
\nbig as a skyscraper. And Wile E. Coyote\u2019s dedication,
\nhis constant prayers for this one thing, his need
\nto hold the baby Jesus in his own hands,
\nto not have to take it on faith\u2014he gets what he wants.
\nThat\u2019s right. Wile E. Coyote catches up
\nwith the Road Runner, who\u2019s now a thousand times
\nhis size. He grabs hold of the Road Runner\u2019s leg
\nwith his tiny little hand. He\u2019s caught him.
\nCoyote never thought this would happen. He\u2019s built
\nhis whole life around this one goal. Put himself
\nout of work is what he\u2019s done, my friends.
\nOur Coyote holds up a little sign
\nsaying \u201cnow what?\u201d We waited.
\nThen one Sunday the preacher\u2019s gone, a stranger
\nin his place, wearing his robes. The fan
\non high, lilies asea. One of you, he shouts, is free.
\nOne of you will not have to pay the piper.
\nOne of you will walk this earth and you shall not
\nstumble and you shall not thirst. One of you
\nis lost and you shall not be found. We left,
\neach one of us. Some did come back. Some
\nonly went as far as the laundry line before missing
\nthe feel of slippers on carpet. Some watched the sky
\nthat night and took comfort in the blinking radio tower.
\nSome flew. There was so much to be undone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Megan Snyder-Camp’s<\/a> first collection, The Forest of Sure Things<\/em><\/a> (2010), won the Tupelo Press\/Crazyhorse First Book Award. She has received grants and residencies from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Djerassi, the 4Culture Foundation, and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. Her work has recently been featured on the PBS NewsHour.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Church Our church was all brick, no name on it and no stained glass. Every few years a new preacher took over and tried to make us sing. One told us Wile E. Coyote\u2019s lifelong quest for the Road Runner … Continue reading