As founding editor of Many Voices Press, Lowell Jaeger compiled Poems Across the Big Sky, an anthology of Montana poets, and New Poets of the American West, an anthology of poets from 11 western states. His third collection of poems, Suddenly Out of a Long Sleep (Arctos Press 2009) was a finalist for the Paterson Award. His fourth collection, WE (Main Street Rag Press) was released in 2010. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Montana Arts Council, and winner of the Grolier Poetry Peace Prize. Most recently Jaeger was awarded the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award for his work in promoting thoughtful civic discourse.

Saving Jesus
By Lowell Jaeger

We were shepherds, my granddaughter Aurora
declared, as she and I and her brother Cody
hiked the hillside trail behind the house
toward our picnic spot on Henry Creek.

She gave us each a stick to walk with
–like shepherds do–and showed us how
to poke our canes into the earth at our feet,
step-by-step, because the canes knew which way

we should go. It’s God, she said. He tells
the canes to guide the shepherds. And lo,
our canes beckoned us into a patch of bright white
snowberries, in sight of which Cody proclaimed

God said pick ’em. Yeah, Aurora said, he wants us
to carry the berries to the creek and let the currents
wash them away so the soldiers will untie Jesus.
I asked but couldn’t quite puzzle through it

as to why Jesus had been bound in knots of old twine.
It was our charge now to save him. This was clear.
At Henry Creek we offered our snowberries
in solemn silence, taking turns, beholding each berry

as it disappeared into distant lands downstream.
Lo and double-lo. God was happy about this.
Jesus slippe out of his bondage and smiled upon us.
And we three shepherds marched proudly home.