He spoke a language

descended from the tongue
of Cicero and Ovid,
and he stepped ashore
on the sweltering beach,
clad in a sweat-drenched
dark cassock, wearing
his savior's tortured body
around his neck, and
marveling at the alien landscape's
ferocious greenery.
The rough men were bringing
the tools of conquest off the
ships, and
a group of luckless
donkeys had been landed
to carry the
shining excrement of the pillage
to come.
The man the others
called Father asked if he could
borrow one of the animals
to explore.
"Bring it back alive" was the blunt reply,
and together the tired servant
and his temporary master set out.
Clutching his magic beads and
murmuring appeals
to the ominous heavens,
the holy man and his mindless
companion pushed into
the tangles of foliage for
more than half an hour.
With a start, they came upon
a group of men as naked as
Adam before the Fall, and for
a moment that spanned centuries,
they stared at each other with
frozen amazement.
Seeing the living embodiment
of their legends in front of them,
the reddish bronze men fell to
the earth prostrate, and chanted
their humble welcome.
"God has delivered me", the rider said
in a barely audible rapture, and he
knew that the New Jerusalem
could not be far.
And holding his head high,
with the Divine Countenance itself
reflected on his face,
he rode the starved little donkey
toward those whom he would
baptize into the Kingdom,
and the bare-skinned welcomers
leading them
quivered with anticipation
at introducing the centaur-god
to their soon to be enlightened
brothers and sisters.