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Family Tree

(And Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar…” Matthew 1:3)

The truth is in the blood, they say.         

blood lines tell no lies.
what is written there is written;
no sly erasures, no dodges in the dark.

Matthew kept his tax records,
knew who had paid, who still owed,
what to Caesar, what to God;
knew not to falsify his book.

When he made lists of begots,               
traced the blood of Jesus,
he kept the shame they had recited
on nights around the Galilean fires.
Twice-spurned Tamar, once Judah’s
whore during sheepshearing beside
the road to Bethlehem, his signet
a pledge on future payment.

Rahab, the harlot, built
her house into the city wall                             
for ease of egress, betrayed
her king, a cord her guarantee.

Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, David
bedded quickly, quicker dispatched
hubby to the front, letter
in his helmet, Bathsheba willing.

Solomon, triumphant in his riddles,
glorious in his temple, wise
in his palaces, dumb dumb
in his thousand wives and concubines.

The roots of his tree are here.
bloods speaks to blood,
no lie is found in it.
the purging is from within the flow.

Kilian McDonnell, OSB Copyright ©2003 The Order of Saint Benedict
Swift Lord You Are Not was published by St. John's University Press in September, 2003 and is available from The Liturgical Press or your local bookstores.

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