On a Lenten Sunday morning
with the ten unambiguous rules
of conduct that God delivered
the focus of the sermon which
is both ambiguous and confusing
and far too conversant in the
lower-case S version of sin,
insisting it is we who must do
the forgiving rather than mention
anything so ponderous as the
upper-case S version of which
apparently we shall not speak
lest it raise it’s snake’s head and
hissing, remind us how we made
it ours even though we keep it
in the dark, we think, where it is
over-fed and under-confessed.
And yet the woman in the pew
ahead who arrived a minute late
and breathless loosed her scarf
and revealed an unkempt braid
coiled up high and clipped in place
though a curl at the end escaped
and flopped to and fro with
the rhythm of the hymns.
I reach for the clip praying that if
this small mess were undone,
her hair smoothed and divided into
a trinity of equal parts and without
hurry woven neatly over again so
that curl is tamed to twist ‘round
the finger of God, this hour might be
redeemed and a small portion of our
collective Sin given up to grace.
© Dana Hughes 3.3.18
Furthermore... 
At first, I thought, “this is a different Dana poem, one that tackles the big questions head on, philosophically.” But then you did what you do so well, turn a woman’s disheveling hairdo into a metaphor for the grand theological realities, and I realized I was home again. More and more these days, I find myself walking away unsatisfied from the preachments of even those with whom I agree, yearning for a language that affirms without arguing, provides without proving, makes a space for my wandering mind on its long strange walk in the woods. You did that here. Thanks. May all braids be Trinities, and may all stray locks be serpents brought to heel in their perichorean intertwining.
thank you, dear Paul. moving from pulpit to pew is an exercise in impatience. i would far prefer to wander those woods.