Behold: Elijah come to restore
All things to the state they once enjoyed.
Pointing to the way things were before,
When tired Earth was playground
Of birds and fruits and baubles
And none needed be employed
In any task save savoring the sounds
Of wind and rain and laughter—
Of who? What frivolity before the Fall?
(Kids, we know, came after.)
—Perhaps first Man, for all his faults,
Entertained his wife with witty banter.
Or perhaps good-natured Eve, like any
Doting daughter, having learned levity
From her Father, raised an eyebrow
In delight at mirthful somersaults
Of first Dog who chased first Cow
Across verdant lawns of paradise.
Our honey-eater’s charge was harder,
Reviving half-heard echoes
Of such innocence
From long-remembered tales. In life
He gathered up amid bitter groaning,
Wips of desert dust, locust droning,
Gurgle of swift rivers, and from far off,
Murmurs of assembled peoples
Descending one-by-one from cities
With faith baked dark as crust,
Seeking their renewal in the waters.
Come, John, take your rest.
Your hard work is done. Your final gaze
Was unfortunately fixed
On the smirk of Salomé
Frozen like a juddered frame of VCR
From Our Lord’s year Nineteen Eighty-Six,
But this maliced visage was not to be
Your fate forever: To you, Forerunner,
Belongs future as well as past.
You trod straight trail for those who wait
In blooming orchards, not quite hopeless,
Who die in war or die in oceans,
Who die of thirst or die of freeze,
Who bear child or treat disease,
Who walk the streets, who sleep too late,
Reside in offices, commute by tram;
Who live for their small pleasures though
Nothing really good can seem to last,
Who have often heard of heaven
But would not dream it is for them.
But who when they dream it dream
Of something rather simple, like a garden
With a view, maybe mountains
In the the distance, and even if
Somewhere inside they long
For cosmic reconciliation,
How could they have guessed,
Before all your lonely labor,
That behind our veils of blood
And boredom what awaits us,
Little lambs gone off to slaughter,
Is an unexpected celebration?