(1630-2) a painting by Nicolas Poussin in Musée Candé, Chantilly

It is the foot on the baby’s throat
That really hits home,
Reaches the parent of any child.


And the wild sword held
To decapitate the pure head,
The face as pale as snow.


Oh the kneeling mother’s
Anguished face,
Shocked with the fear,


Begging and struggling, oh silently
Crying forever
In the moments of one man’s madness,


The freeze- framed
Killing of innocence.
One masculine hand grips


Her hair with violence,
Prevents the intervention of love.
The terror of a soldier,


Ordered by Herod to murder
The helpless hope of the future
In an envious frenzy of blood.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2016

Published in JOURNEYS, AN ANTHOLOGY OF WORLD POETRY, South Africa, 2009