Zebedee’s gift

I think the Galilee loved them
almost as much as I did.
Days waiting for fish, then hauling
nets through fresh fields of water, overflowing
with more than 140 kinds, scales and fins.
They spent nights mending nets, caulking boats,
bringing the balm of prayer to the sick hired men.

Then one morning everything changed.
The sky spired with an eastern light
as the waves wrapped our boat like a prayer shawl.
On the shore that rabbi stood waving,
his voice as calm as the Galilee ever was,
enjoining my two sons to leave our boat

and follow him into a kingdom beyond
oars, nets, hooks, pegs, tenons, and tacking.
My sons still fish but now throw out
their nets on the right side
of waters that are deeper and fuller
than shallow Galilee.