Going to Chapel (Poetry)

In ones and twos they go,
tread the footworn path across quiet fields —
the Sunday route their forefathers knew well —
to where the chapel squats, high on the hill.

Solemn in procession, snaking through
the seeded grass, where sheep heads raise
to watch them pass — the men clean-collared now,
their jackets brushed, farm wives following,
modestly lifting hems above the mud,
and lagging children, awkward in best clothes,
                                                trudge last.

The chapel, small and plain, waits Baptist-grim,
clinging to a bare flank of the rock
with evening’s light slanting at its side
and the preacher, vulture-black, hovering.

He counts them in — the congregation’s few
old-timers and their families who come
every Sunday, offer up their prayers and praise
in their own way, in their own language,
believing God will understand it better
in the old tongue.

The sermon rages — terrifying — long,
the preacher’s scowl is fierce, his words are harsh,
promising for sure they’ll all be damned,
but when it’s over and they trickle forth
into the lulling twilight and its hush,
they all feel sure He’s watching
and they’re saved.