Classic Poem

His world is ochre over which a crow
at dusk flies home. A bankrupt's house and barn,
a field assailed by January snow,
the river winding like a spinning yarn.

No human drama in his straw-filled frame,
as he hangs, facing nature hard at work:
the lynx in the black thicket hunting game,
the maelstrom in the icy water's murk.

No father comes down from a sunlit cloud
to save the lemmings headed for the shore.
There is the smell of raw meat, blood and bone,

deer fur spewed under oak trees in the wild.
There is no Pilate, Lazarus, or poor.
And yet the cross is heavier than stone.