When they drew near to Jerusalem, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately on entering it, you will find a donkey tethered there on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here." So they went off and found a donkey tethered at a gate outside on the street, and they untied it and brought it to Jesus and put their cloaks over it. And he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna!" (Mark 11)
The Poet
Thinks of the Donkey
On the
outskirts of Jerusalem
the
donkey waited.
Not
especially brave,
or filled with understanding,
he stood
and waited.
How
horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with
delight!
How
doves, released from their cages,
clatter
away, splashed with sunlight.
But the
donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he
let himself be led away.
Then he
let the stranger mount.
Never had
he seen such crowds!
And I
wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he
was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope,
finally, he felt brave.
I hope,
finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he
lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
- Mary Oliver
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