Where the Wild Dogs Howl

Where the Wild Dogs Howl

The desert sun hammered down

upon the old beggar woman

dressed in tattered rags

as she sat huddled

and bent in the ribbon of shade

all day long by the town gate

yet the bowl at her feet

held but two coins

as the sun at last slid away

and in the fading of the light

with the closing of the gates

she walked forth all alone

along a narrow-winding path twisting

in the wilderness of rock and thorn

darkening in the deepening gloom

to trudge afraid

where the wild dogs howl

into a brooding canyon

where ring the lepers' bells

in warning to keep away

and she passed them by

these shadowy figures

of rotting flesh huddled

murmuring by the campfires

picking her way to where

only the slinking wild dogs come

in a dark dell as a black saucer pit

there to pause afraid

listening to a fell voice

whispering on the fetid air

Woman

why weep you here

in this forsaken valley

of cold black stone

where the night is deep

wild dogs rally

cold wind groans

where in scattered heaps

like a hell's gallery

lie the lost grey bones

where he sleeps

keeps no tally

of your moans

She answered not

the whispering wraith in the darkness

nor glanced at the horror

but walked slowly

to the crumpled figure

at the foot of the cliff

from which he'd been flung

the bleak night before

by priests of the town

and she squatted down

beside the grey face

to gently place

one coin per glazed eye

then wept brokenly

into the night

and the fell voice on the moaning wind

suddenly now was still

and listened to her wail

Oh my son

my son

Judas

my poor son

Over the years on Gather, I have published 10 Easter poems - this is one of them.