Holy Sepulchre

The crippled church pulses with boredom and devotion, and disinterested, cursory glances.

Sunglasses cast their unnecessary shade on uninformed, uncaring eyes,

And tired legs shift from side to side in an unceasing dance — a lame waltz of tedium and tears.

And if there is any genuine wonder staring out through that glass darkly, my prejudice discounts it:

Everyone knows that tourists don’t care;

That they tramp their crass and ignorant (and probably American) feet over these ancient stones in slavish ignorance and follow their guides like sheep.

I, of course, am not a tourist. My education, my cultural sensitivity forbids it.

Their sandals, their shorts and shades betray their hunger for the sun — a desperate, ten-day dash for tanned skin to go with the photos they’ll show back home.

My summer clothes are incidental, my sunglasses irrelevant. I know things. I care. I deserve to be here.

I look around in equal measures of disdain at the sheep around me — the tourists and the devotees.

How little they know! If only they were clever goats like me — enlightened enough to scorn the superstition of stones and smoke, humble enough to believe.

I forget that the shepherd loves his sheep. Maybe more than his goats.

Crowds crush, candles flicker, faithful pilgrims moan, priests intone,

Dark wood and darker stone arch around me like the tomb, like night, like the grave,

And ancient Byzantine saints stare down their golden disapproval through the gloom.

Where in all this tawdry tat is the Messiah? The Son of God who died here, the living King they saw arise here?

I’m sure he’s here, but my proud reasonableness can’t find him.

I’ll go outside, and rejoin Jerusalem, and pray in the sun.