A Cross of Wood

That day most dread
has come again
to fill my head
with woeful, doleful imagery.

The church is dark.
The lamp unlit.
The mourners come in quiet groups,
with shuffled, muffled footstep sounds.
In solemn prayer, I see them stoop.

A Friday good? A cross of wood.
How harrowing! How hallowing!
That such a day could be the spring
to fling us
into Eastering;
childhood stations, rattled, prattled,
scourging, sepulchre, ignominious,
lacrymosa - infamous gibbet,
dolorosa - mother afflicted.

I hurry on to my holy solace.
Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.
In the face of such atrocity
I cling to that brief sanity!
Veronicas's whom I yearn to be.
In every sorrowing face I see,
I'll try to wipe that face for thee
and will I see that face of thine!

A desert's dearth - the promised land;
the woes of winter - the spring's magic
wand;
a crucifixion - the resurrection.

-Colleen Gordon

Front Page Top