Blessed Are

by Gale Acuff

 I love everybody but folks that I

hate I said to Miss Hooker after Sun

-day School class this morning after she went

over that Bible-stuff about Jesus

saying that I should love my enemies

and be good to them who hurt me and if

someone swipes my shirt slide him my coat, too,

and so on, it's still in the Good Book, it's

not going anywhere, the words I mean,

which is a good thing because I can't call

'em all back by memory but any

-way that's what I told Miss Hooker, I said

that I love all folks except of course them

as I hate and she said Gale, you've wasted

the last fifty-five minutes, you've broken

God's heart and Jesus's, too, and almost

mine - she did look mortified - Why don't we

take it to the Lord in prayer and I

said Yes ma'am, all right, since I don't hate Him

and she said Well, I should think not, so we

took to our knees on the linoleum

and prayed though Miss Hooker did most of it

and then we yelled Amen and then she helped

me up, not that I needed help and not

that I put my weight on her but then it

hit me, love-your-enemies sometimes is

easier than love-your-friends, I wonder

which we are or will become or used to

be. I'd ask her but we'd just pray again.

*

Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Ascent, Chiron Review, McNeese Review, Adirondack Review, Weber, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Carolina Quarterly, Arkansas Review, Poem, South Dakota Review, and many other journals. He has also authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008). He has also taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.

*

Next: