Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!

​The Invention of Pigs

From the February 2017 Print Edition

Come our one great bushfirepigs, sty-released, declined to quittheir pavements of gravel and shit.Other beasts ran headlong, whipping off with genitals pinched high.Human mothers taught their infants creek-dipping.Fathers galloped, gale-blown blaze strippinggrass at their heels and on by too swift . . . . Continue Reading »

Jesus Was A Healer

From the March 2015 Print Edition

Jesus was a healernever turned a patient downnever charged coin or conversionstarted off with dust and spittlethen re-tuned lives to patternsimply by his attentionoften surprised himself a littleby his unbounded abilityJesus was a healerreattached his captor’s earopened senses, unjammed . . . . Continue Reading »

Growth

From the June/July 2014 Print Edition

One who’d been my friendly Granwas now mostly barred from me,accomplishing her hard deathon that strange farm miles away. My mother was nursing herso we couldn’t be at home.Dad had to stay out there, milking,appearing sometimes, with his people,all waiting for the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Canonization

From the May 2011 Print Edition

Rome 17 October 2010 Mary MacKillop, born 1842, what are the clergy giving you on my birthday, Mother Mary? Sainthood? So long after God did? Independence? But you’re your own Scot. The job of Australian icon? Well yes. Black flies in the buggy. Bush pianos. The cheek-sawing wimple in summer: . . . . Continue Reading »