How many hurts accumulate
like straws under a camel’s nose
before it sneezes,
before the involuntary blast
of anger, grief, ugliness propels
one’s inside out, clutches
at the throat like stone eggs,
tears a slow, impassible river
floating faded, sodden grass
toward the sea? Seven and seventy
you say? And tell a parable
of how the only way to lessen
that weight that scores
the camel’s back is to lose count.
For a different approach to this Sunday’s Gospel, see yesterday’s post: No stray bullets
over the water 