(for Gerry Kennedy)

living still:

David, king and chosen,

hurls his weeping

across his lifeless victory:

O Absalom, my son, my son!

living still:

Job, just and righteous,

magnet of bad news,

swept out ever more to sea

by successive tsunamis

barely floats on his scrap of ashes:

I alone have escaped to tell you.

living still:

Jacob, old and starving,

brought up to Egypt

out of famine,

pulls his youngest

from the bloodied mouth

of a chimera:

I must go and see him before I die.

Faith of our fathers

living still

in hearts tumultuous

in veins all tangled up

still living

thanks to undying love.