Pentecost

Like a bell it rings,
The hour has come.
We heard it first in Cana,
It might have been a distant knolling
But it sounded only once.
We hardly noticed its toll
Over the merriment of his prank.
“You numbskull!” the maitre d’ whispered,
“You served the rot gut first,
and saved the best for last!”
We might have laughed
But no one titters when the Gospels are read.
And was that a bell knelling in the distance,
As he said, “My hour has not yet come?”

No one laid a hand on him when
the soldiers came.
His hour had not yet come,
But the hour would come to pass
from this world to the Father
For he loved his own in the world
And he loved them to the end.

The hour sounds closer now,
Ominous, inexorable,
Ordained from olden time.
We know that sound
As if we’ve always known
The hour must come.
The hour has come
Give glory to your son.
Who would ask a friend
To greet such an hour?
Who would trust
A Deity who leads by tolling bells?

How sad its sounding in their ears –
To the Witness and the Mother --
As he takes her to his home.

But now the bells ring
As the hours sing
And we’re scandalously drunk.
He has made our bitter sweet,
Our joy complete;
And our tears are lovely drink.