Even These Stones

  Even These Stones

Even these stones, He said, 

even these stones will start to shout

if the people’s song gives out.

Even these stones,

and by that He meant

the whole lot of them–

rent and hewn and stacked and sewn

into the Jerusalem eastern wall.

Every one of these chosen stones

will all shake awake from sleep

and call out this raspy rhapsody:

“Our cornerstone is passing by!”

This they will shout with no one

understanding even a single word.

Deaf to learn, left alone, 

no one seeing the cornerstone 

turning the corner of no return.

And of it what then?

A ruinous mob. A crucifixion.

A midday darkness. A dystopian vision

of a Roman siege that would not leave

one of these stones on top of another–

to be smothered in piles,

scattered upon the desolate hill,

testament to the coming ages

of the thoroughly conquered–

but murmuring still cryptic phrases: 

“Destroy this Temple.

Tear our walls down limb from limb.

Three days time He will rebuild it.

Three days we will rise again.”