TO HIS WAYWARD BRIDE

I will purchase you for thirty
silver coins from the seller,
from Ebay, from under the falling
mallet of time will I buy you
who once were mine,
I will make you my wife again,
I will pay the price,
love you with an everlasting love.

To the desert I will take you,
no internet or cell phone,
you shall depend upon me
for your food and clothes,

I will woo you with desert flower,
plucked guitar and silver moon,
beside the fountain in a courtyard
I will make you mine again.

The auctioneer’s wooden hammer falls
with the city’s collapsing towers,
your beauty, when I find you,
blood-grimed in destroyer’s dust
beneath a crimson setting sun,
a bitter twisted smile.

Your cities are in ruins,
dangling in tatters,
there are many stupified in the chaos
who would seize you like hope,
climb you like rope or stepping stone,
but I have bought you, paid the price,
you are my own.

Who among your lovers
gave his life for you?
Who among them can match
my price?

You sold yourself for savory soup,
a tradesman’s skillful hands,
his wrench and hammer.

But you I valued more
than love of my Father God,
I gave my life for you
that you might live.

He loved us both to life again.

Softly we are bound with cords of love,
the desert shall wonder with coyote and owl
at the songs they hear.