First Coming

First Coming

David Cantillo

When the sun peals the sabbath
to my ears, and the wind filters notes
of distant cheers,
and the campaniles of dust
come pounding at my bones,

I know
that the psalm trees speak into the earth,
- gripping it with their beaked roots,
what crickets mean
- spraying their trebles up
like small tridents, and dogs say
- looping their vowels like long nooses,
what even the day and night signal
to each other through the years,
are but testament
of a descent to man
greater than human birth.

That hand which holds the snake
curled within a woman’s breast,
that figure of beauty the earth makes,
revolving among angels, are not
separate elements of creation,
but two phases
of the same dust.

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David Cantillo
Poet & Pastor

David is a poet, pastor, former teacher and PhD chemist. He published a book on pastoral work, “The Compleat Pastor,” and has recorded a collection of original songs in Spanish, his native language, “Lirio de los Valles.”

Photography by Paul Pastourmatzis