He must have been a sight:
barbaric hair, dilated eyes (prelude
to Herodias’ still life on the platter).
They say he lived on wild honey and the long torsos
of locusts, that he dressed in fetid camel pelts
and rags, and that he ranted
as if he had a finger in a messianic
socket, his arm a limb of lightning
in the shallows of the Jordan.
Then one day Jesus in his yellow hair, the whole head
thundering under water, and heaven downloaded
between the bodies of two cousins,
baptist and carpenter,
genetic tripwires sizzlingthe Holy Spirit
furring vision, and then the Lord’s voice
great blue whale
breached on the banks of being. Rose light
on the mountains, all mythic harvestsheen
and mystery, all potential in the instantaneous
skating of the cloudsthen recognition
as the boys, wet and electric,
nod to one another the unremitting readiness, the Now.
And the ecstatic knowing.
The tragic ecstatic knowing.
John Baptizing Jesus
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
Brian Strassburger, S.J., a Jesuit priest serving migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, joins “Jesuitical” this week to talk about what the election of Donald J. Trump might mean for his ministry.
“Laudato Si’” and its implementation seem to have stalled in the church. We need to revivify our efforts—and to recognize the Christological perspectives of our care for creation and our common home.
Around the affluent world, new hostility, resentment and anxiety has been directed at immigrant populations that are emerging as preferred scapegoats for all manner of political and socio-economic shortcomings.
“Each day is becoming more difficult, but we do not surrender,” Father Igor Boyko, 48, the rector of the Greek Catholic seminary in Lviv, told Gerard O’Connell. “To surrender means we are finished.”