On the road south to Egypt,

with the baby nursed into

a milk-coma and tucked from

sight of eyes that mustn’t see

a holy child on the lam,

(though why the divine father

in the trinity of parents didn’t

think to douse the astral light

before the not-so-wise men

appeared and asked a king

known for slaughtering his

own sons where they might find

the boy who would usurp him

is a theodicean mystery)

did the human parents hear

the screams of mothers who

couldn’t hide their sons

from the heavenly spotlight

or the soldiers’ blades?

Were there not enough

angels to go around?

It would be years before

they could return, the king

dead and all those childless

women long lost to madness.

© Dana Hughes 2.10.18

 Pushed hard against the back-bone of blue horizon

the mountain-tops pile up and curl in a frozen spume,

whitecaps flinging froth like salt-stiff pennants in a gale.

These heights were whittled by shrinking inland seas,

their silt churned aeon after aeon ‘til the teeth of this

and the shell of that fused with just enough showing

for this iteration of creation to call such wonders Holy.

The sliding-down sun daubs the crest with coral,

a hue akin to the blush on a conch’s pursed lip,

conjuring ancient motes that mingle with tomorrow.

©Dana Hughes 2.5.18