Tower of Siloam

David Walshe FAITH Magazine May-June 2008

non perditio est iniquo et alienatio operantibus iniustitiam? (Job 31:3)

Like a coagulated clot in the vessel of memory
They articulated their dread of an event taken as a pretext.
Were these Galileans surgeons of their own misfortune,
whose blood Pilate had mixed with the Temple sacrifice?
The scrubbed-down blood from the cobbled asphalt
Coalescing in time through the act of brute Roman soldiery.
Were they worse offenders than any others?
Were they? Because they suffered this?

Questions, like a fleet of eighteen ships orbing into port,
Under the lengthening shadow of the leaning tower,
The death toll squared in the market courtyard, about the rigging
And the wind whipped ropes . silence, stillness,
There where the stacking eagles gather and circle with intent
Out of the sun, signs in time that lead men to repent.