Waiting in Line--A Poem for Ash Wednesday

I stand in a long and winding line.
In some ways I’ve been standing here
  all my life
waiting, waiting my turn.
I remember my terror waiting in line
to get that shot in school.
I remember waiting in line with all the
other scouts hoping to be picked to play.
I remember that line when, in cap
  and gown, I reached out for my diploma.
There have been so many lines—waiting to
  get baptized, to get my driver’s license,
  to get married—to wait with all
  the other men for the Doctor to come
  and say: “It’s a girl...”
All my life, it seems I have been waiting
  in some line.
Sometimes scared, sometimes bored—
  sometimes excited.


And today I stand waiting in yet another line.
Waiting for what?
I do not rightly know.
To have someone mark my forehead
  with a smudge.
To hear those painful words: “Dust thou art
  and to dust you shall return.”
To remember moments ago we penitents prayed
  together: “Have mercy upon me O God...”
To move away marked by a smudged cross—
That wherever I go and whatever I do—
I will remember that I will be
  kept
  or carried
  or loved
  or just forgiven.
And so, I stand in this long line waiting.
                             --Roger Lovette