Broken Altar

A Poem by James

I feel the devil calling me,
a voice I choose not to hear

He's called before
when I was young

But even then I refused to listen

Growing up with an innate sense of right
and wrong
The path to righteousness was easy to find
but laden with snares and pitfalls

I've been caught in my share (more than) --

In the woods behind my house
about a mile hike
stands an old wooden church,
abandoned and fallen to ruin

I've stood on the weathered floor
and stared up at the vaulted ceiling
The only sound I heard
was the sound the wind makes
when it blows through an empty tunnel

When I was a child
I heard the Voice of God

Now I search for it
in the decaying wood
and broken altar