Preacher, Don't Send Me
Preacher, Don't Send Me - meaning Summary
Heaven Reimagined, Demands Realism
The speaker rejects conventional religious promises of a gilded afterlife and asks instead for a believable, humane vision of paradise rooted in earthly pleasures and relationships. With plain, colloquial voice and wry humor, the poem contrasts religious cliché with concrete desires—loyal families, kind strangers, jazz, autumn—demanding authenticity over empty consolations. It reads as a plea for a afterlife that reflects lived needs and memories rather than abstract rewards.
Read Complete AnalysesPreacher, don't send me when I die to some big ghetto in the sky where rats eat cats of the leopard type and Sunday brunch is grits and tripe. I've known those rats I've seen them kill and gritsI've had would make a hill, or maybe a mountain, so what I need from you on Sunday is a different creed. Preacher, please don't promise me streets of gold and milk for free. I stopped all milk at four years old and once I'm dead I won't need gold. I'd call a place pure paradise where families are loyal and strangers are nice, where the music is jazz and the season is fall. Promise me that or nothing at all.
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