Divinity Among the Thorns (a poem)

Divinity Among the Thorns

by Elhanan Ben-Avraham

Sweet the Garden tended in dreams

of fruited trees of light and Life,

with pleasured players foremost in the mind

as fools of wisdom wasted

and outgrowth of thorns and thistle

in that garden of serpents left untended,

its players exiled to deserts

of cactus and futility,

or to swamps of slithering snakes

and the vampiric mosquito all

out of order defying capture,

awaiting the rescue though he tarry,

yet in courage unspeakable

left he the throne for the thorn

and walked the fallow garden

among them

pricked and pierced,

torn and tossed in vulnerability

to their rescue, defanging the

dolor of darkness, lighting

the candle in the acrid breeze

of polluted thought, in quietness

planting the Garden anew,

naked nailed to the tree of death,

cutting the path to the Tree of Life.

Artistic Drawing by Elhanan Ben-Avraham