Joel 2:25 reads: “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm—my great army that I sent among you."
While thinking about this passage--and the past 9 months--I wrote this poem:
When Come the Locusts
They blow in
on the west wind
A couple
weeks before the harvest.
In ones or
twos they appear,
Few enough
to dispose of underfoot,
Satisfyingly,
With a
Crunch.
Pop.
Negligible.
All at once
the air is black with them:
The sight of
their winged bodies swarming,
The sound of
their winged bodies buzzing,
The feel of
their winged bodies assaulting,
Relentlessly,
Man.
Beast.
Crops.
Inescapable.
They do not
remain long.
Like bombers
on an evening run
They race in
from the darkness
To ravage
everything in their wake.
Ravenously
Chomping.
Tearing.
Ripping.
Inexorable.
In an
instant they are gone.
Behind them lie
despoiled
Acres of
wheat and rye
And hollow-eyed peasants
Incredulously
Staring.
Praying.
Weeping.
Inconceivable.
So begins a
season of want,
A season of
penury,
In which
there is no cash for luxuries,
In which all things become luxuries
Seemingly:
Food.
Clothing.
Heat.
Pitiable.
This is not
the end, however.
Among them
are those who persevere,
Who scrape
together enough
To start
over once again.
Heroically
Sowing,
Growing,
Reaping.
Invincible.
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