Straight Paths

I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness
"Make straight paths for the Lord"

And we followed in those paths, dutifully
Down shag-carpet stairways into Chevy station wagons
Eight miles into town to attend Sunday school at 9:00
And worship service at 10:15 and  Lord  afterwards
Allowing fifteen minutes for heart-felt fellowship, home again
Giggitty gig with Q-Mart fried chicken  to go - home again
To Mom’s  home-ade biscuits and mashed potatoes with milk gravy
The very Elmer’s glue of the patriarchs I am sure

And we discovered those paths - wide open sideways in Chevy coups
Noisily cavorting across murky river bottoms and county lines
To score some weed or to look up some chicks one of us claimed to know
Gulping a $3 bottle of fruit-puke wine on Sunday afternoons
Barrell-assin’ home before dark in time for Sunday evening services
Playing freeze-out through town so Dads shouldn’t smell smoke
No casual Christians we -  Besides we all had such nice voices
The Von Trapp Family singers meets Fanny J Crosby

And we trampled those paths - back and forth from work to school
In fuel sipping Datsun tin cans; then home again to crash then back to work
Until that one day when we were stopped dead in our tracks by some odd girl
Sliding into home base - where new paths are sought and tread
And escape routes gleefully become a thing of the wistful past
Returns home  -  monogamous  -  with near monotonous regularity
My Chevy truck could drive it blind-folded if she had the road to herself
Drags up steps to a greet a loving dog and outside to toss a baseball

And so we traced those paths - to jobs and sometimes to promotions
Or skeltered down indistinct pathways ending in yet another cul de sac
Dutifully in Nissan sedans - to baseball games and Boy Scout meetings
Soccer practice  and tournaments  Sunday schools and birthday parties
Step meetings and marriage council appointments - weekend retreats
Then follows another's Benz back home to sit in rooms large as caverns
Where familiarity and loathing stage a yin-yang dance one with another
Maintains, then those paths - At least for now -  For the sake of vows taken