You, pod of the poor
the famished, the saintly, the destitute—
of those besieged and those diseased
of St. John in his itchy wrap of hide and
fur, wild-haired as a weed in the wind—
you, oh carob, were his food
though men confuse Mark and Matthew’s
akrides (locust-the-bean) with locust the bug.
Muhammad’s soldiers ate
you on their breadless march,
starving children in Greek cellars,
during the occupation by German
troops. Spanish Civil War victims, too,
ate you.
Locust-bean, carob, St. John’s bread, you are chocolate
in color if not in taste although health
nuts insist that, carob, you
are as good as the real thing.
Maybe, I’d concede, you resemble a cocoa-
coated espresso bean. But fibrous, grainy,
fatless—carob
you? You are not
chocolate.
No, dear carob, you
are no delicacy; you are a hungry
man’s hope. That biblical son,
the younger one, waging
his little, gunless war
in his heart
had fasted for weeks
had forgotten all
his father’s palace meat
before he stole you
ate your humble
body and
became you.
