Thomas Banks teaches online at the House of Humane Letters. His writings have appeared in First Things, Quadrant, the New English Review, the Imaginative Conservative, Crisis Magazine, and various other publications. He lives in North Carolina.
The lion at your side, Like you, cadaverous master, Stares up at the dark sky And waits this world’s disaster. With never a pause you pray And with creation groan, Striking at your hard heart To break it with a stone. Did you find holiness Inside the cave you keep, And does the Spirit guard…
Remain with me. I do not choose you less For knowing long your wiles and waywardness. Be rooted with me, planted side by side, Though blighted fruit and thorns be multiplied. Rest with me, while the desert wastes increase, The garden fails, the vine and fig tree cease: Do not depart, although shame and distress…
He moved the candle closer to the paper Whose clouded words escaped his failing sight. Blind anger rose again. He dropped the taper, Thought flickered low, and rage put out the light. Despair stood near at hand to shake its head, And bitterness reminded him that slaves Stood as unworthy masters in the stead Of…
