Good Friday

It seemed a rooster’s call awoke me from my dreams today.
The sun, blood-red, began to mark this day of dread
And suffering, of new things and of finishing, 
As the cock crow and the dawn shattered His friend’s
Self-reliant faith, self-contained bravado, ending
In futile tears and self-recrimination. He runs away
Leaving his Friend to the scoffing soldiers and the torture,
Leaving He who did no wrong to be buffeted and mocked,
Crowned in thorns, arrayed in purple, ordered to prophesy.
All flee away. The whips, the beatings, the bloody pavement
Only preliminary to that long walk to a low hill, carrying
The tree. And even this the conqueror cannot achieve, 
After no sleep, no food, no cooling drink, or touch
Of friendship. He collapses, cannot go on, an unknown 
Dark face is seized from the crowd
By the soldiers – You there, you carry it.
And then the awful nailing, iron driven through the carpenter’s
Good hands, the pilgrim’s weary feet, and the raising
Halfway to the sky, earth just out of reach. The blood covers
Everything, ground, cross, the Crucified unrecognizable
Endures all, the crawling insects sucking creation’s essence,
The tearing pain inside, the sea crushing His heart, soul
Abandonment as all the desperate cries of all time come true
And the face of Creation turns away, the red sun turns black
In despair. He looks into the abyss of human wretchedness
And somehow yet finds love enough amid the agony
To fill it, to finish it. The veil is torn, the spear tears His side,
Pierces His heart, bloody water drains away into sand and rock.
The flies continue to gather and cover as even his mother 
And his brothers finally slip away. The cool of evening descends
And the first crickets call, heralding this new thing, this coming day.
His friends arrange a cold bed in the stone of the rich man’s tomb, 
Their own hearts broken and torn, scatter to grieve and to forget
And to wait the rising of that new Sun, that new day.

Author: Duncan MacNae

Exiled Gael, scion of the Dust Bowl, dweller within Divine Grace, admirer of mountains, I have made my peace with trout and the starlings. Looking for a river and healing trees. duncanmacduncan5@gmail.com View all posts by Duncan MacNae