Christ Comes to Skopelos

by Frank Thomas Smith


Christ consents to be called
To Skopelos
One Easter Sunday
Several years before the year
Two-thousand-twenty.

They've been calling him continually
In all their white-walled
Icon-laden churches,
Never expecting he'd hear their songs.

He heard but will come instead
To a hill above the town
Where a donkey grazes
And cypresses stand in rows
Like green flame.

No one will see him
No one will hear him
When Christ consents to be called
To Skopelos
One Easter Sunday still to come.

* * * * *

Christ came to Skopelos
One Easter Sunday
In the year, this very year
Two-thousand-twenty.

They'd been calling him relentlessly
In all their white-walled
Icon-laden churches,
Never expecting he'd hear their chants.

He heard, but came instead
To a hill above the town
Where a donkey grazes still
And cypresses stand in rows
Like green flame.

No one saw him,
No one heard him
When Christ came to Skopelos
One Easter Sunday a week ago.


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