"So Long, It's Been Good to Know You..."
For twenty years
my body has been a stone.
For twenty years, ever since God coaxed me
from my mother’s body,
choosing not to tell me
how bitter stones become
choosing not to tell me how the false priests
swear nothing good grows in the fields of anyone
who does not know God’s name.
Only bitter stones, they say.
Only I grow in those gardens.
What they did not say is that
those people
the thin agnostic woman and her husband
and their dog
would be unafraid to lay their hands on my stone body
and plant it safely in their garden.
When I grow into something fruitful
Oh God!
I will burn the churches of the false priests.
God knows the gardens of his people
whether or not they know his name.
my body has been a stone.
For twenty years, ever since God coaxed me
from my mother’s body,
choosing not to tell me
how bitter stones become
choosing not to tell me how the false priests
swear nothing good grows in the fields of anyone
who does not know God’s name.
Only bitter stones, they say.
Only I grow in those gardens.
What they did not say is that
those people
the thin agnostic woman and her husband
and their dog
would be unafraid to lay their hands on my stone body
and plant it safely in their garden.
When I grow into something fruitful
Oh God!
I will burn the churches of the false priests.
God knows the gardens of his people
whether or not they know his name.