Tenebrae

Easter Sunday is a time of riotous joy, celebrating the most outrageous act of love and restoration. But in some ways I'm more partial to the stillness of the Good Friday and Holy Saturday services. In that spirit - and departing from my usual style of post - I'd like to share one of my tenebrae poems.

                        Of Blood and Wine

I asked You, foolishly,

to let me taste Your grief;

to share a moment of Your anguish

before dawn’s relief.

You gave me none.

Nor did I drink of peace or gentle rest:

just hollow spaces, born of absent hope

and love suppressed.

Abandoned, 
watching from the door

As papa packs and walks away.

Discarded, 
leopard pants and spandex

fading with the light of day.

Fearful, 
numbers falling from the ticker,

dropping scruples in their wake.

But of Your thoughts,

I can hear nothing more

than echoed Tenebrae.

I can see the mother turning

from the child at her breast,

I can hear the feet of thousands

racing on a hollow quest,

hear the gunshots and the lying,

see the petty and the vain,

taste the tears of cheap tomorrows

in the cup of flat champagne.

In the empty grey, we gather:

bankrupt;

helpless;

angry;

torn;

Held in silent, cold abeyance

by the unresponding stone.

In the stillness of our shadows,

drenched in blood and bitter wine,

I see I cannot taste Your sorrow

for tonight,

You drank of mine.

-cs Good Friday/Holy Saturday © 032208