Daniel Heydon

Note: Many years ago, an acquaintance of mine wanted to draw my picture. He was displeased with this unfinished portrait and was about to throw it away, when I asked him if I could have it. 

Before I became an astrologer, I spent two years writing poetry. Here is my favorite one.

Salt-willow                                   by Daniel Heydon

           (From the cross...)

I have made you into my Judas

in loving you

I gave you cause to hate –

with the silver force of must

driven beyond the bleak of lust,

of prophecy and debate,

I let you see me as man,

decisive and hesitant,

finite in his capability,

infinite, by sheer impossibility...

how you did admire me

when I with whips did rid

my house of thieves who scourge

with tongues

what their hearts ignored –

yet as a man of compassion,

was I too gentle,

infinite in my patience,

impatient to see in you

that part of you

that brought out

the Christ in me?

in our garden walks

I wanted you to find

in years the leaves

that must be spread apart

to swallow hard

the salt-sweet taste of truth,

and yet,

I wanted you to love me still.

I sought a spirit not bound

to this desert called Galilee –

nor was it the flesh that ached,

that beckoned by way of Gethsemane –

indeed, I let the thickets

imitate with scars

the wounds

that were your eyes...

I took your kiss

for what it was –-

what was

could not be bought with coin

nor be betrayed by silence –

yet alone in the skies

with thieves at my side,

impotent, with my hands tied,

the wind chafing my thighs

I realized –

how easy to forgive him

a stranger, of his sin.

I gave you guilt

instead of love.