Son of the Father

by Tim Bete | October 2, 2019 12:04 am

This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is by Doug Taylor-Weiss.                                                                                               

Son of the Father

In jail as bait, he hears the bailiff’s thud;
Barabbas squints to glimpse the herd outside.
Nearsightedness submerges flesh in blood,
His window’s bars a dyke against the tide.
Below, the tower door — he cannot know —
Stands open to the breeze. A fresher air
Inspires the thought of Mother’s winter row
Of wheat, his father’s servants’ buttered fare.
Unstinting in unpunished bile he bade
Good-bye and just as soon fell to the swine.
What ferocious appetites they had!
“Give us the son of Abbas!” There’s the line.
The mists divide; he sees his better half,
His older brother, Father’s fatted calf.

 

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Doug Taylor-Weiss served many years as a Protestant minister before entering into full communion with the Catholic Church in 2016. He teaches in various capacities and, with his wife, sings in two liturgical choirs. They live in Grand Rapids.

Doug attended the 2019 Colosseum Summer Institute[1], a course and workshop in the art of poetry for aspiring writers run by James Matthew Wilson. The Institute is an annual, intensive course and workshop in the art of poetry for aspiring writers who wish to apprentice themselves to the great and enduring tradition of Catholic letters.

Source URL: https://integratedcatholiclife.org/2019/10/the-son-of-the-father/

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