Books of Deeds

You turned 90 years old this year

What do you have to show

For using this planet for nine decades?

Do you ever take stock?

Do you ever think about

And wonder why your children

Abandoned you?

And want nothing to do with you?

Could it be because of the innumerable bruises,

bone fractures, and emotional torture

You dealt out on their bodies, souls and spirits

in your self-righteous rage?

A rage that you thought was your birthright because you

Were “you”?

You were the man…

Did they come to recognize your

Lack of moral competence and compass

Early on in their childhoods

Learning to avoid any interaction

With you at all?

Did you not miss the hugs, and kisses

Most fathers yearn for from their children?

Did they pray for your redemption

While begging God to make them never

Be like you?

Do you ever wonder what the Angels

And the Divine

Will say and think when they view your

Book of Deeds

When you go for your life review?

When they see the section on honor, love and decency

Filled with numerous clean, white, pristine pages

Notable for their emptiness?

Yet the section on dishonor, ego, shame

Lust and cruelty will be weighed down heavily with dark,

Dank, black ink documenting

Your cruelty, intolerance and hatred?

How will you explain the bags of

Deviant pornography you kept hidden in your closet

To the Divine?

How will you explain the adultery you inflicted on your wife?

How will you explain the verbal cruelty and beatings you

Subjected your children to?

And your wife?

Do you think a biweekly cracker and sip of wine

Given to you with a prayer from the priest will absolve you?

Do you think that small minor act will negate that you never once

Performed an act of kindness from your heart?

That you never hugged or loved your children or wife?

Do you think you are okay with God?

Do you? Do you? Do you?

Your time is running out, old man.

But there is still time to redeem yourself

You can still heal your legacy

Before the final call out from above.

So I ask you,

Will there be tears of sorrow and sadness for you

When you are gone?

Or tears of pity and relief that you are gone?

The choice is yours.

- Julie O'Hara 2023

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