by Ryan Keating

I have a friend who insists every year
on Palm Sunday that the crowd didn’t
have palm branches, because there were
no palm trees in Jerusalem back then.

While we’re laying down palm fronds
to find ourselves in the reverent crowd
welcoming the King who’s come home,
his imagination is editing our branches,

switching them for something he finds
more historically accurate, but Jesus
Hosanna

looks down with whatever colored eyes
and steps graciously on his prickly branch.

Ryan Keating is a pastor, writer, and teacher on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. His writing can be found or is forthcoming in publications such as Ekstasis Magazine, Saint Katherine Review, Amethyst Review, and Miras Dergi, where he is a regular contributor in Turkish and English.

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