Intro from the author: I sometimes wonder if there was more to the Christ-story than was recorded. Maybe stories were told that were left out because they were considered inappropriate. Or maybe some right-brained artisty-type author just never got around to writing them down! And I imagine how much wider open the door would be if we knew all that really happened. John 21:25: "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which, if they should be written every one…"
A Fifth Gospel
What if Joseph
sat down with Jesus
when he was 15 and told him
you're getting too old for this,
and besides, the orders are piling up
and I need you in the shop—
you'll have to quit
your dance lessons,
but Matthew shook his head,
said we can't have that?
What if there was a Priscilla
who wrote in her journal
how she played the trombone
while Jesus strummed his guitar
and sang protest songs
about the Roman occupation,
but Mark said no way
I'll put that in my book?
What if Jesus himself
penned a poem
when he was twenty-nine
about how hard it was to always be
best man and never groom,
but Luke burned the ode,
thought it heresy?
And what if out in the wilderness
of temptation, after Satan crawled away,
Jesus jammed his easel in the sand
and painted camels
laden down with gold and myrrh,
plodding single file towards the Zion Gate,
(eye-of-needle size he made it look),
but John deemed it best
not to tell?
Aunt Marie and Her Coverings
Sitting at your Singer
In the front of your house
so you could see everyone
walking by on College Avenue,
you made your hundred thousand
prayer coverings,
some the size of football helmets
(not that you'd have known).
Last five years
you'd say you'd have to use
a microscope to see it
when the just baptized 13-year-olds
came in asking for one a fifth that size.
But you made them anyway.
Some with strings,
some black, some white.
You'd package them up
and mail them off
to Tennessee and even Tanganyika.
Cousin Emily says
you wondered
if when you got to heaven
(I can see you
sitting on your little throne,
gazing out your picture window
at all the saints
hallelujahing by)
you'd find out
that all your covering making
was unnecessary
like we all do
about all we do.