I Would Follow: A Poem For Bono—By PJ
I Would Follow
PJ DeGenaro
A poem for Bono on his birthday.
Golden Years, watercolor by Kelly Eddington, 2026. Based on a photo by the wonderful Noel Clarke.
I Would Follow
I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do.
— Nick Cave
The sun at four o’clock ignites an acacia in bloom
Next door; the light seeming to shoot up straight from the roots
And out through the quivering topmost blossoms.
So you might as well believe God spoke to Moses
Through a burning bush, and the bush was not consumed,
Because in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God,
And there is no reason why the word couldn’t have been a metaphor.
Love, you have been leading me through the desert
(Because sooner or later we all must wander in the desert)
Like Moses or Jesus, whether for forty days or forty years,
And the desert is whatever we must encounter
That is thorny, arid and hard.
The desert is where the devil pokes you with a stick and asks
“Why can’t you just turn these stones to bread, if you’re so smart.”
And even though we were raised by the sea,
We can feel the searing sun in the empty sky
And smell the Enemy’s breath: a city eaten by wildfire.
If we had been born near the Bering Strait
Would the God of our Book command us to cross the ice
Through six months of horizonless dark?
I think I would follow you anyway, wearing snowshoes and
Thick hides and furs against the frostbite,
Half accepting, half resenting your certainty
That the sun would rise again.
In this, the angriest, stupidest year in living memory,
You can turn any corner and slam into an ogre
Lurching from the shadows, pure malevolence and bile
Ready to stab you through the lungs with a knife or a flagpole.
So where are the strong? And who are the trusted?
Is the line I sing to myself all day long.
And just when I think I’m through with lovingkindness
You turn up in the middle of the street
Unshaven and rumpled with your lyre and your psalter,
All excited, jumping and waving up at my window.
And you have filled my heart with more joy
Than all their grain and new wine.
(Thanks to Nick Cave, Elvis Costello, and Psalm 4.)