Poetry by Geoffrey Reiter

The Judgment of the Trees

 Judges 9:7-15

The trees, they wanted shade.  The sun blazed bright

With life and light, but life and light that stung,

And so they sought the fertile plain among

Their green and growing fellows till their sight

Alit upon the olive tree, and “Might

You please protect us from that burn that’s hung

On high?” they pled.  The olive tree with ready tongue

Replied, “I cannot turn your day to night.

Depart!”  So spoke the fig tree and the vine

From which the wine of gladness flows.  At last

They tasked the scornful thorn, who laughed and cried,

“I’ll take your seeds, your sprouts, your lush-green line

And guard them from the light—if you’ll but cast

Your growth, on oath, in my protective pride.”

Hagar's Well

Dear God, I cannot watch my baby die;

I scarce can bear to crawl about the dunes

And listen to his slight and sighing cry.

The sear upon his flesh from countless noons

Has brought into my mind the vengeful tunes

Of hot derision from the scorching voice

Of mistress Sarah.  Oh, for gibbous moons

So cool; in soothing sunsets I’ll rejoice,

The balm which shall allay the blister of her choice.

But in that azure heaven’s magnitude

Do You, oh Abram’s God, peer through the sun

And in this sea of sand see solitude,

The sand-scraped, hoarse, imploring pleas of one

Whose prayers, before they’ve even yet begun

Seem doomed to melt away?  But yet, perhaps

As all these prayers, now liquid, flow and run,

I hope that Your hand, cupped and outstretched, traps

My mournful, longing choruses before I lapse.

Not I, my cry shall be, but oh my boy—

Your chosen servant’s seed as much as he

Who milked at Sarah’s breast—do not destroy

His unlived life.  I pray you take from me

My breath alone, for I am naught but scree

And worthless shards, whereas within my child

Is hallowed flesh from him who, by decree,

Shall burst into a nation.  In this wild

And braying youth lies him upon whom you have smiled.

Great God, what is this un-sunlight that shines

To make the sun look black?  It is Your face

Which trades my gaze.  The gleaming stare defines

Your fiery peace and sin-combusting grace.

I scarce can look, my eyes not meant to trace

The contours of a countenance that glows

With such a sacred light.  Now is this place,

This desert wasteland, holier than those

Oases where but water, not Your mercy, flows.

My vision unobstructed now, the view

Unchecked by earthly lookings, fully freed

From all men wish to see, in seeing You

I now can see where You would have me lead

My Ishmael.  Though not Your chosen seed,

A life still worth the living in Your eyes.

Oh prophet, priest, and king, that you should heed

My pleas?  I see, I drink, within You lies

A well with draughts so deep, it lifts us to the skies.

Geoffrey Reiter is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Humanities at Lancaster Bible College and an Associate Editor at the website Christ and Pop Culture. He is a scholar of weird fiction and fantasy, and his poetry and fiction have previously appeared in Spectral Realms, Star*Line, Penumbra, ParABnormal, Scifaikuest, and The Mythic Circle.  His book The Lime Kiln and Other Enchanted Spaces: Poems and Tales is scheduled to be published by Hippocampus Press in 2025.