Absalom (edit 1)

The picture, from a book my mother gave me

back when I was just a child, tried to draw

the reader’s eye to the shock of black hair

that had willfully managed to tangle itself

into the low hanging branch of a tree

and

his mule moved forward

and

his enemies drew close behind

and

Absalom, lifted up away from his saddle, dangled

and

waited for the killing blow.

What I recall all these years later was the distress
on Absalom’s face as he realized that hope
could be snatched away by the thing he loved most.

David wept at the news – and isn’t that just the way

that when the son is gone, the father remembers

the smell of his scalp, the feel of his hand,
the way he looked at you as if you were a living God?

And now at the death, David is alone, Absalom’s wrongs

forgotten, the bitter words lost, the anger a breeze that chill’s the heart

leaving behind only the emptiness where once Absalom,

David’s son – and all those that would follow him - had dwelt.