Good Friday reflection

PASSION

Does it feel real? Crouching
in the evening chill while
leaves overhead silver in the breeze
I struggle for wakefulness
even in this cold. He is not asleep
but staring in the dark closes the eyes
on my blank mind. A sudden cough
startles but the numbness returns.
A lone insect whirrs and in the city
a child calls for its mother
as the feet stir the dead leaves
and the torches come
and the kiss betrays. Lord,
I whisper, I should have watched.

Is it real? The weight of wood
is real enough, but my bearing it
seems beyond bearing and cannot be.
The slow steps seem not mine,
but made by someone
I cannot bear to inhabit. The nails
oh the nails
hotly sliding through the jolt
the hammer makes
in my body in my body
in my body in my body
two strokes each
the strokes of an expert -
it is done. Up, up – lifted up and over
the heads of the crowd I see
the city in the noon light and know
this eternity will not last long
but is it real?

It is finished. Is it
accomplished? Your words, Lord.
The emptiness is there still
as the untimely darkness covers
my failure to attend. The cross still
stands, but empty now. Empty.

©C.M.M.