Offering of Thorns

We mourn because the world is broken.
The deserts and the forests, all cracked,
fissured in the fixture, a vessel split
and leaking blood and oil into the water,
the air, the soil, the valleys, the heights.

And Oh, we cry, If only we could lower
this weary, broken planet into the ground
and raise it up again in, say, three days,
to watch it rise victorious as the sun after
the passing of the tempest in the night.

The bird cries two more times before
we step away from the cosmic graveside,
bloody hands on our shovels. The soil we till
resists our hands. The fruit it yields: an
offering of thorns.