GRAZING ON THE KYLL
Arid lips on tabernacle cheeks.
Resistance, do the idols’ causes wane?
Desert lines burn off the idle strains;
our festivals of light and heat and weeks.
Messiah’s cousin walking in the creek,
dry pieties drink deep from holy rain.
The Nazarene at sea with pitch and gain,
and peace upon you, groaning planks and leaks.
And creaking in us, sea-tossed, Jesus tread.
Why gathered in the Christ-clothed chancels still,
mouthing back that first unbrothered “no” ?
The question asked on Abel’s altar dead;
would we be sheep, who graze upon the kyll?
And if we leave, where would you have us go?
