Tulip‑fluttered wind, night‑swelling sea:

in the smell of desert sands, before we were born,

the tractors ploughed back time from under Mount Sinai

into Washington Park.  There, carved stone

Moses watches his wise God stand hard by

as the father prepares to spill on the quickening sand

his son.  No olive trees whisper here.  Does Abraham

see that no scapegoat waits at hand?  His son

         and his son's sons and daughters,

sucked down, will sweeten that sand, no matter how many

small, innocent, wordless furs squeak out their lives.

What is dying now, even as we speak, to save us?