Dust and Thirst

Dust and Thirst

(“Come down from your lofty place and sit in the dust.” Jeremiah 48:18a)

You sit in your dust and you laugh as if you drink all day from
a tap of crystal liquid; so cool your burning eyes assume all will be
healed under the flow of its spring.

You bivouacked a place higher than your enemies,
you set up camp to display your long stature, your tall statues,
your walls which shine with whitewash sheen. In the desert you
can pretend all summer and nearly all autumn as well; the veneer is

smeared upon the stacked rubble walls. You stole the shimmer from
mica and polished bronze in angles to reflect the sun's long rays
for the fat portion of the day into the last few sightseers' approving view.

But the rains reveal you are austere; enough water to persuade your
pretty pebble to let loose of their sham of a veneer. You are done.

I stand in humanity's circle, showing off my latest braintrust just the same
as ancient Moab and Dibon, its royal city. Here's the thing, we who sing
our praises through the summer until the rains of revelation expose our
bling as nothing more than drugs store trinkets, we will thirst in the dust
if we do it long enough.

Come down from your heights, you boaster of National rights;

Start the hike today, off the mountain; do not delay, your boast is only
brighter balloons filled with the same gas as the names you've claimed
are behind every conspiracy. You are the tyranny you decry.
Your hunger to be right is the heresy that prevents tomorrow's meal
from gracing a family so hungry their faces are smeared messy after
the feast.