The Memoir Of The Reluctant Prodigal Poem by Michael Achile Umameh

Father, when I left, I really had no idea where I was going
I really did not see the road ahead of me
For I always knew my anguished desire to return to you
And your anxious desire to take me will lead me home
The school of finitude and fragility of existence has taught me life.

Searching for ultimate truth and unending love
Seem to be the drive that propel men from Light to light
Armed with the freedom even to betray the God whom I sought
In the light of the Word, through the passion and sacrifice,
Disorderly used, abused and misused
Yet I stood on the fertile land of grace
Saved! In spite of my negative living and being carnal
Self-seeking as always, selfish and purblind as ever before
Yet always struggling, always re-affirming, always resuming the march
Standing at the cross-roads of the ancient paths
Gazing into the future of where I am coming

And then if I had listened to all that the Theologians are saying of you
If I had agreed with the severity preachers apportioned to you
If I had accented to penance that mystics says awaits me
Father, I would never have come back
And that I have come back does not mean I will not go again
Am I not still the prisoner of the past?

Still eyeing that path, those by-paths instead of the Way
Often loitering, halting and straying still
Off that way, to those ways that lead away from home
Will you hold out those grace coated arm to welcome me still?

I am too afraid to live to long here with you
Always thinking, I am missing a lot out there
I am damn too afraid to die out there
Always sure to die even a slave here
Is a million times better, than to die rich out there
So father, here, I have come back again

I have left behind those added frenzies of size and price
Those whirlpools of emptiness and hollow friends
Those patch-works of pleasures and pain, apathy and antipathy
Those messy amalgams of bitter-sweet out there
Armed with unconditional trust that you will not leave me alone
With those balms of unconditional love to mend my brokenness
I have come back again

Father, I do not know
I may still go back again
But do not give up on me
I may delay, dawdle and loiter in returning
Yet I will come, I am coming, now am following
No other way, no other path
But this that leads to you, Christ!