Worthy

After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, "He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us." And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and the slave does it." When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

- Luke 7:1-10

If someone said: dip a thin litmus strip into a beaker

full of a spinning alcohol distillation of you

would it satisfy a judging of your acerbic self

would it prove anything about the whether

and if of your life and your place in this spiral galaxy

and how close you are permitted to spin toward holiness

could someone send your DNA off to a sterile lab in Quantico

and decode your worth and potential and inevitable cause of death

maybe a hidden camera somewhere is scanning your retina

looking for some reason to let you in the door or rather not

To hell with it all: stand in the free wind and breathe in from

your diaphragm and let the whirl of oxygen redden your blood

chant in ancient melody lines that you exist without apology

or regret and you are foreign to nothing not even God

so offer your healing matchless praise with primitive abandon

while you still have breath and song and mind in space and time