The Years the Locusts have Consumed

We’ve eaten all the corn we’d saved for seed
and there are no animals left to bleed
upon our stone altars trying to appease
the storm gods or whoever’s there to hear–
who might remove the flies, return the bees,
the oil and wine, the fattened flock to shear.
Or will they have us whither, have us starve,
greet death without valor, dried up, unhurt
but empty, with swordless hands forced to carve
existence from the unforgiving dirt.
And still there is the One who claims he will
restore the years the locusts have consumed,
will come to plant as once he came to kill,
bring life from death as Aaron’s staff once bloomed.