On all sides

He wasn’t a hermit, like the Ancient Fathers,
to be written of and admired,
not building houses of redemption under mossy caves
or crawling naked for salvation through the desert sand.
Like them, though, he could attest
to a moment of great importance,
when the heavens blasted on him all their loves
to reveal the smiling countenance of the Great Name —
but only once.

Since then, the revelations had grown less.
Afterward, the business of the moment was carried on as always,
with the same asked-for smile and occasional frown.
His glasses bore the steamy burden of rainy days
while his legs continued to display the glories of athletic scars.
It would have been impossible, they say,
to have known the tremendous weight
he carried inside.
Even those made close to him
by an unwavering connection of genetic strands
could not identify his agony —

how, after the most astonishing ecstasy
of his meek-lived life,
he was clawed at and desired
by desert demons on all sides.