Confessions

Confessions:

I ate the cheesecake.
I left my notes at home.
It was not the dog's fault.
I don't know everything.
I need a sign from God sometimes,
just the tiniest little sign.
Just one word,
or a splash of water,
a piece of bread, broken
and multiplied.
Multiplied!
I need to see just a small piece
of forgiveness,
a little resurrection.
Just one word
Multiplied.
I don't know everything.
It was not the dog's fault.
I left my notes at home.
I ate the cheesecake.
Forgive me.

Rev. Diane Roth

I didn't leave my notes home today.  But I seem to have misplaced my patience.  It is most definitely not the cat's fault, and I want to tell the students swarming my office that I don't know everything, and that sometimes I lose the threads that are holding together three classes, an exam, four different problem sets and all the majors who want to know what to take, when and who they will be when they emerge from this place.  Which problem 3 are you asking about again?

I needed a sign, a tiny sign, that God has not left me alone to hold up this corner of the world.  So I looked out my window, to see the topmost branches of the fifty foot tall tree stirring in the breeze against an ice blue sky edged with pink.  A sign.  Nothing substantial, nothing that I might cling to, just a passing touch, like the ones exchanged by long time lovers.

I don't know everything. "Forgive me," I say to the last student, "my patience is exhausted."

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"Confessions:"  © Diane Roth. Used with permission.