Alone

After Isaiah 1

To stand on temple steps

or in the street, and speak

what no one wants to hear

in fact, what will create

anger and spite and rejection

and rage and reprisal,

is to write the biography

of the prophet, alone,

no one standing nearby,

no one nodding, alone,

no one lending a sympathetic ear,

alone, watching the crowd

pick up stones.

Photograph by Dawn Hudson via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.