Sunday, January 3, 2016

What I do


After Acts 28

To walk in this city, even
between guards, soldiers
escorting their prisoner,
even so to walk here is
the feel the throb of empire,
a bustle of commerce,
a convulsion, an excitement,
orators in the streets, shouts,
and noise, constant noise
abating only at late night, yet
this place pulsates,
the sheer excitement of what
men call the center
of the world, the center
of the universe.

Yet I see a weed between
paving stones, a weed flowering
as its grows. I do what I know
to do, from the beginning:
to speak, perhaps to preach,
even with my soldier guards
on each side.


Illustration: Paul in Rome by Christoph Weigel (German engraver, 1654-1725).

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