Who Do You Say We Are?

Jesus, almost all agree,
Had no children. Mere decades
After Caesar Augustus

Ruled the world, his descendants
Had also dwindled to none.
Sure, there’s an occasional Khan

Or Charlemagne with offspring
Leading to descendant hordes,
But great names, as bodies,

Don’t often reproduce much
Or enough to overcome
Their lineal misfortunes.

For every Darwin or Bach,
There’s a Shakespeare or Jeanne d’Arc.
Point is, names follow our own

Trajectories, not fitness
In the flesh. Any success
For a noun’s reputation

Has to do with the success
Of the phrases and stories
It travels and swirls among.

Some of our most famous names
(Cough, Homer, cough, cough, Laozi)
May never have had bodies.

And yet you think of stories
As about the characters
Of the people they feature—

God made flesh, the Emperor,
Sage, and Saint. What were they like?
Whatever words say they were.