2020: a poem
This year the earth cried,
“Unclean! Unclean!”
We covered our faces
To follow the law.
We stood at a distance
As lepers of old.
Those ten ambushed the Healer
As He passed by.
They ought to have called out the state-sanctioned warning,
But instead they addressed as Master
Him Who spoke into being the world
Which had of late turned on them
And turned them out,
Fearing pandemic.
But here He walked among them,
Within six feet, the measure of a man,
And they would veil their faces no longer.
Audacious unclothed lips cried for the Mercy
Who dared enter the forbidden space between them.
“Go and show,” He instructed, “yourselves to the priests,”
As He would do, soon and sudden.
Unable to stand the presence of smooth thievery,
He would turn their tables, liberating their merchandise,
Living beings never made for a cage.
But for now, the Sons of Levi, yet impure,
Could recite for the ten, if they bothered:
“Priestly prescription for a cleansed leper:
Cedar wood,
Hyssop,
Scarlet string,
Two clean live birds,
One to slay in an earthen vessel
Over running water,
One to dip in the blood
And set free
Over an open field.”
At the Master’s healing word, with faces toward the Temple,
Each step soothed aching, burning, rotting flesh
Until all returned as in years past,
When they breathed air with their loved ones
Unencumbered, undistanced, unmasked.
Levitical inspectors would marvel,
Complicitly, complacently, correctly,
As though it were their doing.
But here comes one of the healed,
Foreign bird soaring over open field,
Trumpeting the heart-bursting thanks
Sung by the first pigeon,
The first dove,
The first lark of the meadow.
He alights at His Master’s feet
Through which nail would soon pierce wood,
Ribbons of scarlet scoring His undefiled flesh.
Chief priests would perform their deathly rite,
Fearing imperial politics.
But He would again turn their tables,
Animating for their purification the ancient law,
The clean live one to be slain in an earthen vessel
Over the running waters of time,
Pungent Hyssop to heal our leprous earth.
Leviticus 14, Malachi 3, Luke 17, John 2
