My Bethlehem
My Bethlehem, my origin, my place of birth.
I only know you as a name on a map,
a vague memory of high grasses and tin-sided houses,
and Goodyear blimps and chain linked fences.
I wish you were a capital places, an Imperial home,
a messianic tax haven, like the Levantine Caymans,
that there were ghost stories or that Joseph Smith
had at one point been chased out of town;
but you’re another nameless place, a good place,
where trees and shade and tobacco grow, and clay
slides down the steep hills into honeysuckle creeks,
and snapping turtles bob lazily down muddy rivers.
I feel I owe you some allegiance, some pledge,
some byzantine respect, maybe I should wear your colors,
and find out who your rivals are and hate them too.
There were no prophecies foretelling my birth,
nor were there angels heralding shepherds as I sang my first,
but maybe an ambulance, and a few red lights blown through,
and a long night for my mom and dad.
