Joseph the Carpenter

Only now that I am faithless do questions
from Scripture finally return to my mind.
My childhood megachurch did not prepare me
 
to ask why you disappeared once the priests
realized that your son was most likely God.
After searching for three days, you must have grieved
 
that your son was lost, then felt a cold envy
when he said, “Did you not know I had to be
in my Father’s house?” You should have forfeited
 
salvation to strike him. I want to travel
to Judea and write your lost epilogue.
You, not father of God, but carpenter. Fake
 
a pilgrimage. It’s there. Traces of you –
Your fingerprints on the ruins of homes,
brothels, temples. At the very least, your hands
 
were needed in the country of God. Someone
to forget Messiahs. To build the crosses.
Though your son perished alone and forsaken,
 
I don’t blame you for leaving. Better to be
a deadbeat carpenter than a saint, roaming
the Promised Land, so blameless. If anything,
 
I believe fathers should go as quietly
as you, without verse or justification.
How blessed the Son.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/846jxy/lost/dvnkxv3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/83cu9c/interfacehdb/dvk7vkn/