Seven Sorrowful Mysteries

THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN

A singularity of silence speaks
within the settled hush of graveside terror.
The earth, still thirsting Abel’s blood reeks
of chthonic crimes now closing round, and icy air
of evening grapples him in panic’s brace.
The man, the body’s man perspiring clings
to respiration, its strength and grace,
its confidence and hope that brings
tomorrow’s dawn. Tonight he gives his breath
to prayer in spastic confidence and bides
remaining hours. Before the certain death
arrives, the passion feeds and faith provides
assurance. Courage succors fainting flesh
as magistrates prepare their flailing thresh.

THE TRIALS OF JESUS

As magistrates prepare their flailing thresh
they must observe the niceties of law.
The man entangled deep in common mesh
of family, neighbors, friends must now withdraw
beyond all human ken. He should despise
and be despised, then hanged beyond the reach
of mortal sympathy, nor should the eyes
of God discover in his plight a breach
between his guilt and shame. His impotence,
bewilderment, and pain will disconnect
all ties to earth. His sentence represents
our innocence, his agony perfects
the letter and the spirit of our rule.
A cross will make a pendant for this jewel.

THE SCOURGING OF JESUS

“A cross will make a pendant for this jewel.”
Although the treatment of the man is rough --
their binding, shoving, slaps and kicks are cruel --
his mute devotion silently rebuffs
each insult as it lands. But iron chains
flay his flesh, exposing vital parts
to fecal waste and fetid city lanes.
Their holocaust of violence resorts
to pranks, and every jape becomes a prayer
as majesty endures insult and rape --
humiliation finally must prepare
a man for death. His naked soul agape
before their vile abuse, bereft of God,
they lay upon his arm an iron rod.

JESUS IS CROWNED WITH THORNS

They lay upon his arm an iron rod
then fashion from a nearby tree a crown
of thorns. They roar approval at his nod
and bow their heads to hail their Jewish clown.
The soldiers place him like a king on Zion’s hill
with criminals for courtiers either side
and shouts of mocking ribaldry until
their eyes are streaming tears as if they cried.
A kind of bestial instinct worships him,
an irony beyond insane caprice,
that recognize in helplessness the grim
authority of beauty. At last their mocking ceased.
They stand him on his feet and lead him out
that he with cross and blood might blaze the route.


JESUS CARRIES HIS CROSS

That he with cross and blood might blaze a route
the son of Isaac goes to Calvary.
He can't afford the luxury of doubt
nor draw his eyes away from certainty.
He does not cringe before the crowded lanes
nor search for mercy where no mercy lies.
Abandoned by his own, his gaze remains
beyond that fatal place where goodness dies.
The sky that spoke so kindly gives no sign
of comfort, earth is silent, stolid, mute
as inbred madness growing still assigns
to him all wretchedness without refute.
Like Abram’s son ascending Mount Mariah,
he bears the wooden burden of pariah.


JESUS MEETS HIS SORROWING MOTHER

He bears with wood the burden of pariah,
a fearful gift received so long ago,
before his birth, a fated Jeremiah
called to expiate a history of woe.
So vindication scalds and frenzied temp-
est sweeps the same Jerusalem as mobs
exact again their angry punishment.
The frightened Maccabean widow sobs
and yet she won’t relent. Her son is not
the first to die for keeping faith nor will
he be the last. Her God has sought
her only child, a Christ of iron will,
a gift atoning sin and all its weight,
a gift within a holocaust of hate.

JESUS DIES ON THE CROSS

A gift within a holocaust of hate,
without connection to the earth but shoved
aloft until the city’s wrath abates;
of heavens too despised, a gift unloved,
alone, an offering of self, he will
remain in agony and silent calm.
His body's twisted dance goes on until
his every breath expels a tortured psalm,
an anguished prayer incarnate of his bowels.
And yet his life is not a broken pledge,
for by his shattered gift all sacred vows
are made complete; and through a sacrilege
of piety, insanity of Greeks,
A singularity of silence speaks.