The Lamb

It was a picture I had after the war.

A bombed English church. I was too young

to know the word English or war,

but I knew the picture.

The ruined city still seemed noble.

The cathedral with its roof blown off

was not less godly. The church was the same

plus rain and sky. Birds flew in and out

of the holes God’s fist made in the walls.

All our desire for love or children

is treated like rags by the enemy.

I knew so much and sang anyway.

Like a bird who will sing until

it is brought down. When they take

away the trees, the child picks up a stick

and says, this is a tree, this the house

and the family. As we might. Through a door

of what had been a house, into the field

of rubble, walks a single lamb, tilting

its head, curious, unafraid, hungry.

Copyright Credit: Linda Gregg, “The Lamb” from Chosen By the Lion. Copyright © 1994 by Linda Gregg. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Source: Chosen by the Lion (Graywolf Press, 1994)