Peter Venable

I AM

A

Pi(π)

relation

for Khufu

helped builders

to design the Great

Pyramid, Giza, Egypt—

from height, perimeter, and

polyhedron base up to its apex.

It is reckoned to be four thousand,

six-hundred years old and stands fixed

through roasting noonday summer suns,

chilly winter nights, whipping desert winds,

and millennia of pharaohs, monarchs, presidents.

Multitudes still watch and marvel at its perpetuity.

A craftsman, a commonplace Hebrew day laborer,

hiked to Sepphoris as a mason and craftsman.

At 33 he was baptized and began his duty.

He strode on—blistered toes turned hard.

His calloused hands raised dead souls.

He ordered sniveling spirits away.

In a sailboat, with a command

He calmed a brutal tempest.

When the hour came,

He broke his body.

The next morning

“It is finished.”

Three days:

The tomb

empty.

“It is I.”

He flipped the world’s pyramid

upside down on its peak—

its stone tip on His

back for you

and for

I.

Peter Venable has written sacred and secular verse for many decades. He’s appeared in Ancient Paths, Third Wednesday, THEMA, The Windhover, Prairie Messenger, The Christian Century, The Merton Seasonal, Windhover, WestWard Quarterly, and others. He is a septuagenarian, happily married, “Poppy” to two granddaughters, a Christ follower, and volunteers at a prison camp. His Jesus Through A Poet’s Lens is available at Amazon. He is at petervenable.com and on FB.