In this desert thorns rule like leaves in other woods
there where water floods fresh and falls free. Not here.
Short its season, long between them skies are clear
of cloud and full of pale blue, baking hot on hoods
of bird or car. Water is the summum bonum, good
to be guarded inside flesh limbs vulnerable to sheer
swipe of the blade, claw-tear, or burst of beak. Fear
has brought the swarm of thorns in rows, bunched on buds.
On His flesh too then. But not to keep intact
His water of the inner spring forever springing out,
but to perforate all round from brow to back
His head a showerhead to spray the spring, to spout
with gushing geyser-strong into Golgotha’s air
a rain to fall, keep falling down on desert everywhere.
– Jeff Reed