DiaBLOGue

After the staredown, saliva gathering in their mouths,
cotton swelling in his, Daniel invited the lions 
out for drinks and a late supper.

The sky has fasted in the desert 
forty thousand years. 
Now it’s caught a glimpse 
of barley fields and orange groves: 
the table the world sets for winter. 

Among the death of foliage 
in skeleton trees 
he appears, moonlight gracing 
his rack—that upturned, 

In the pasture behind the barn 
where workhorse colts frolic all summer long, 
the creek, once the broth of stones, freezes over, 
greens and blues of creek bed and cottonwood 
muted in meandering. 

When Jesus took the church to bed, rocks rent, 
earth groaned, sky split, spilt watered wine. 
Trees shivered to their hearts to know the carpenter 
laid in the bed he’d made, stone of his stone.