Unbreak Your Back

Unbreak Your Back

(“You were complacent in your evil deeds; you thought, ‘No one sees me.’ Your self-professed wisdom and knowledge lead you astray, when you say, ‘I am unique! No one can compare to me!’” Isaiah 47:10)

I can’t say we were shocked when your genius
(your highness)
fell from a stable
to a mahogany scarlet velvet throne;
but some were surprised (yet they would never
admit it.)

Your infancy was cradled in monumental deception,
you were conceived in arrogance and nursed on privilege
with little detection
of flesh and blood other than the band that
did your bidding.

I can’t say it took us by surprise, your rise from boasting
to a pill too bitter to swallow. And flocks of fallen angels
laid their hands on you, leapt like fawns for you,
posed in photos and roped in the followers for you.
But some were shocked (and they were ejected for it.)

Look over the vast expanse, walk next to the immigrant’s child,
ride in the front of a farmer’s combine at harvest,
sit with the mother and children who have stopped waiting
or the man to come back. Unbreak your back for once and leave
your agenda (hand-written, one thing to do today)
to find the place where the one-king lives

Back in the stable, just a few blocks south of the house
white with history’s stain. Right in your backyard

Left there since the mystery of incarnation; resign
and refind why the one man Jesus loved, having too
much stuff to carry

Turned away and did not follow.