Strange to see this glorious Greek god
here in the heart of Christendom.
Little of the shepherd boy,
round river rock heavy in his sling
or standing alone under chilled moonlight,
keeping watch over his flock,
jackals yipping on distant hills
or frozen still in the grass nearby.
Even less of the warrior king
who killed Philistines by the tens of thousands,
hamstrung their horses,
despised the lame and the bind,
sent his best soldier to the front to die
so he could sleep with that good man’s wife,
cried out to heaven from his hiding place,
smothered his kingship in sackcloth and ashes,
wrote psalms of salvation, psalms of praise
until, at last, in his ripe old age
was comforted by a concubine
who lay close by his side,
keeping him warm on cold dark nights.


Il Divino hammered, drilled, fractured, and pried,
chiseled, chipped, sanded, and polished
until nothing remained but this perfect man
and, scattered about on the ground,
chunks, shards, splinters, chips,
and dust for the wind to blow away.

This article appears in January 2026.

Troy Reeves is a professor of English emeritus at Angelo State University, a campus of Texas Tech. His poems have appeared in Anglican Theological Review, Christian Century, Sojourners, The Writer, Dappled Things and elsewhere.