Asking for Forgiveness

Some Sundays
I plead with God,
bitter and bursting
with the bile of anger
mined from too many years
of cringing in my own private prison
waiting for a flare to show me
the way out-

fearing it might never come

pretending it doesn't matter
I've had to overlook
my own joy.

But today,
on this Sunday at the sea
I am at the House of God.

I pray in peace,
each step painless penance,
as I walk along the shore
and marvel at the color
of the light
as it flows through water
and into the stones
that used to be anchors
on the sand.

The breezes are perfect here
and the sun
burns away all traces
of the many sins
I have committed against
my own soul.

I kneel
under the blue of the sky
asking for
forgiveness.