Innocents

This frightened king, unsettled by the words of Persian pilgrims, 
and terrified of the usurping toddler, 
sets to his own transcendent terror, 
infanticide, 
a moat of dead children 
protecting his dominion. 

 He’s doing what kings do, and emperors, 
and presidents, and titans of – whatever. 
So, founded on footings of fear and dead children, 
the illusion sticks to the back of our eyes,
the conviction trains the shape of our hearts  
to expect…
…nothing else. 

In no time at all 
“good news for all the people” 
has become a maddening spoor for Herod’s frenzied dogs, 
savage and hungry for innocents. 

So it begins: the traverse of eternal confrontation – 
death’s power and love’s authority – 
across the landscape of a single life. 

Death governing, ascendent, 
love a refugee, hunted. 
It is not starting well.

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