Water & salt
The weeping woman who knelt at the feet
of Jesus and anointed him for burial
is sister to the lithe Abishag; the maid
who cradled the hoary head of David
and warmed his paper skin with her own.
Her tears remind one of Bathsheba’s,
wept over a husband, murdered
by a lover-king. The salt from those tears
brings to mind Lot’s nameless wife
who found herself drowned in a tsunami
of fear and regret. There is an essential
economy in the scriptures. Nothing
is ever wasted. Like water and salt,
everything is repurposed, recycled,
reborn. Figs from Naboth’s stolen
vineyard fill the borrowed dish
Jesus shared with Judas in an upper
room while the bones of Joseph can be found
littering Ezekiel’s dreams. Even the swords
that Herod’s men drew against the babes
of Palestine were forged, one by one,
in the granite heart of Egypt’s pharaoh.
And look, the pair of doves
Noah released with such hope have flown
and flown until they have found their rest
in Jerusalem in the leathered hands
of Joseph, Jesus being but eight days old.
