The Beginning

Whatever the genesis
that drew Jesus
to the wilderness

had to have been
a struggle within,
perhaps confusion

or loneliness or
hunger for more
time to explore

the voices calling
in the whispering
of wood curling

off the plane in his shop.
Something made him stop
one day. He was enveloped,

overwhelmed with questions
of purpose, of destinations,
of infinite connections.

Bruce Noll
Albuquerque, N.M.