Burning, dry, and calloused palms;
smell of turpentine rises up to the heavens.
Here he is, ready to break his back again
(working on that same table)
In the beginning was pain.

All the same. Two: chisel and scalpel, one mother.
Father dragging son up, an altar, crying
(another chip away, off the table)
Cedar of Lebanon, born in a stable.

Would you build a house that crumbles in three days’ time?
Tables turned upside down. (He knew the sweat and grime
tables take to sculpt when working with a rotten stump) Oh, he knew
putrefying smells all too well: grains and fibers split in two

as the axe blew to the bloated roots. (Now the fig tree stands cursed)
So, why is there now talk of a vineyard
laid bare and desiccated,
desecrated with blood, this traitor’s guts?

(He wore a crown of thorny twigs for us,
that carpenter) His raspy, sickly hands held down
and crushed into wood consecrated, sprinkled with blood so divine
on an old, rugged vine.