By Richard Mather
One man speaks for Empire,
another for Kingdom.
And the one who belongs
to neither rises tall, a cedar
spared the felling.
Gentlemen, he said.
We find ourselves in a new era,
an era in which Sin has made
a great leap forward.
*
I will go down to Sheol
forever mourning,
the place where Korah
and his men are buried.
To forbid murder means
to have no contact with corpses.
The dead speak
to us, to one another.
They remind us
that Sin and Death
look the same from
where they lie.
Art thou also become weak as we?
Art thou become like unto us?
Here, under the world,
where men and angels
are felled and fallen.
*
Sin carves the body
as it marks the soul.
on a burning body
the word חֶטְא in red.
Sin makes its mark,
its cut is plain to see.
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