the anointing

 

all saints church
peterborugh, nh

the anointing

 

            this is the vale of soul-making

                                    John Keats

 

what is crushed to make this moment

a chrism?

 

the balsam, the olive, and the sun in them

squeezed between Gethsemane & her groves

 

of wooden presses or granite millstones.  The flesh

of them, their pits & sprigs, the twigs, each revolution

 

                                    an unction, the oil felt

first by the repeating plod of the ox or donkey

 

or for the smaller presses

the farmer’s own, his children’s own feet

 

& hands.  slick glistening.  greenish ooze-

drip.  acidic.  waves and wakes of monotonous

 

labor.  daily.  daily.  daily the making, the taking,

the taken.