Absalom

 

The picture, I remember from a book

my mother gave me when I was just a child,

tried to draw the reader’s eye to the shock of black hair

and the way it had willfully managed

to tangle itself into the low hanging branch of a tree

as his mule moved forward and behind his enemies

drew close and Absalom was lifted up away from his saddle

to dangle and wait 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 of a father

and son, that when the boy is gone, the father remembers

what once was, 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 David is alone with the chronic sadness

at the death, Absalom’s wrongs forgotten, the bitter words

lost, the anger a breeze that now chill’s the heart

leaving behind only the emptiness  where once Absalom, David’s son -

and all those that would follow him - had dwelt.