Emmaus Poem

APPEARANCES

In mid-day’s heat
Grit coats the donkey’s mane,
Rubs eyelids rough.
Hours of uneven ground
Stretch ahead. Salt traces
Sparkle, crystal constellations
Fallen along Emmaus road.
Our salt, our lives leaked
Out to dry. Gleaming.

Questions scrape
Like jagged pebbles
Against my sole.
I am without the one
Who would walk
My dusty passageway
Of recently buried gods.

Past serrated mountains,
Joining us, another traveler
Chewing handfuls of olives.
Loudly, he spits the wet stones
Down angled cliffs broken
By thorn trees. Jackals
Startle in their wild slumber.

When this bearded stranger
Wrapped in desert robes
Speaks, he fires my heart –
Prophecy’s brittle crust
Splits open, its dull golden
Glow fanned into flame.
Even the rocks have begun to burn
And sizzle under our feet.