When
the power to change the world
came into the city,
it arrived, it is said,
riding on a donkey.

The power to change the world –
not merely
to secure the diadem of successive kings,
holding it tightly in the flesh until the bone is revealed,
not just
to push the other fella off the top,
to play king of the spinning ball –
but the power to make a glory
out of the mystery of the world

is even now
being jostled and bruised
by an inelegant and lovely brute,
an ass doing its very best
to carry the load,
a dear old living lump of effort and matter,
grunting with effort,
as sure as the gravel
on which it clatters.

The power that has and can and will,
the power to change the world,
is holding on for dear life,
hugging the mule’s neck with all might and maybe,
while laughing so hard
that the pools of tears shake
as they catch the light.