Accursed Fig Tree Poem by Egbert Simcox

Hold, testy Rabbi.
Save anathemas for more sublime sins.
I wither now without your curse.
Why no fruit?
My life too is given up for the Father.
Yahweh has other children - - beetles, ants.
They find sacrament in my failing sap,
In the shredding of my skin and leaves.
Goats, pied sheep and hungering waifs
Share my spotty shade in heat infernal.
My roots, never manured, struggle
To redeem dusty hardened clay
From carving winds and coursing rains.
So, I curse your curse
Just to be for two score fruitless years
Is my earnest of love, my gift to creation,
Though not fruit enough for you.