Jaw Bone Hill

Jaw Bone Hill

(“When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi.” [I.e. the high place of the jawbone] Judges 60:19)

When we toss aside the tools like
Dixie cups that children drink
we litter the waysides with our excess ego.
Then we name it like a monument, neither
to God’s glory or later progeny

But to a jackass’s jawbone.

We erect the highway signs,
“historical marker ahead”
and people stop their cross country
caravans
to view a craggy wasteland where
a simple man who could not keep a vow
for more than a day
cast aside the homemade weapon like
a Frisbee.

A thunder man with elephant ego,
a passion man with voracious thirst,
a hot sand man with unconscious feet,
a swirled head man with indifferent creed

Yet led and finished each deed,
and after, still a miscreant of disregard,
grace settled where, in the final place,
there were no more jawbones to be found.