Behold

By Peter Venable

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spring twilight. The backyard porch.
Frankincense wafts to rafters, as it did
eons ago in Ephratah. Child, sit down!
We have honored Magi. A bright star
twinkles above dark pines--
the beacon then? 

Ghost crabs burrow in my skin. 
Sand fleas scamper in sea-oat hair.
Leg worts burgeon like barnacled pilings. 
These saltwater channels narrow, motor sputters,  
chipped propellers idle. The stern leaks
and steering wheel loosens in dead calm.
My last blink will look like winter cottage shutters. 

Behold, I tell you a mystery—we shall all be changed.
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye . . . *    

Crickets’ serenade. Glow of
Incense burns out. The North Star, 
past The Milky Way, beyond Hubble’s peek,
speaks the greatest mystery,
I shall be raised a spiritual body. *

*1 Cor. 15.51, 44.

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The writer has written sacred and secular verse for many decades. He’s appeared in Ancient Paths, Prairie Messenger, The Lyric, The Anglican Theological Review, The Christian Century, The Merton Seasonal and Windhover. His Jesus Through A Poet’s Lens is available at Amazon. He is at petervenable.com and on Facebook.

Peter's other work on Foreshadow:
A Saturday's Quartet (Poetry, June 2023)
Truth Is Subjectivity (Poetry, April 2024)