Lonely As A Shroud Poem by gershon hepner

I wander lonely as a shroud,
and, unmiraculous, my face
makes no impression on the crowd
because it lacks all signs of grace,
and yet I am a relic, too,
although it seems I don’t evoke
the reverence another Jew
inspired in the common folk
for whom the sentimentalized
report of a messiah who
was very largely fictionalized,
but treated by them as quite true.
I do not echo the events
That this son the Holy Ghost,
experienced, while upon a fence,
I sit, to daffodils the host,
but stranger to the madding crowd
that clings to relics like belief
with trust, though like the Turin Shroud,
I treat it like a handkerchief.


4/20/98