Still Rumored

Still Rumored

(“Some of them began to spit on him. They covered his face and hit him with their fists. They said to him, 'Prophesy!' Even the guards took him and slapped him.” Mark 14:65)

It is still rumored across the prevailing winds that
my sins
were included when they put that sack over Your face;
your nose scratched by the pinny burlap, your mouth closed by
the tight squeeze around Your head. One fist, then two, another,
then three, four or five, seven or ten, we lose count when the blows
come, one and then again, one after the other; knuckles below the nose
and palms straight up the cheekbones.

I do not remember that shadowy place, lit only by oily torches
leaving soot shadows in the air; ghosts crawling on the palace walls.

But the wind still whistles that I lack an alibi. There was no where else
such as I to be. (Though I had often discussed Messianic possibilities,
setting seniors upon their heels with my well-rounded arguments.) I
knew none of that mattered
now. For I did not recognize the very face I had theorized
God might have if He were to visit, satisfied to portion His
grace to the rightly studied few. I knew I stood head of my class.

I have an inkling I attended the mock court and its proceedings,
though I would swear I never meant to be there when God was
knocked down in the preliminary rounds. As the fists flew fewer,
You were left in the middle, a dizzied man pummeled by courageous
bragarts with a blindfold just in case the odds were not even. Turning
like a tree ready to topple, we screamed at your circling room,
“Tell Us! Speak Up! Tell Us, mighty son of god. Prophesy! Speak up!
Prophesy, who hit you, You Wretch of a Blasphemer and Pretender
to the Throne. Tell Us! Speak up! Prophecy! Tell Us! and we will leave you
alone.

But the breeze broke about the darkness of midnight; the whistles of wind
and the prevailing opinions were stopped when the prisoner did not speak,
did not moan, did not mumble, did not accuse. He stood, bloody; his
skin raked like a garden ready for seed. His face was shredded, flesh
torn between lips and cheekbones. His knees were buckled, though he
refused to kneel; and He swayed like the most majestic of trees
when the storms do their best to topple the wooden wonders with
roots spread over acres, and live among us still. He swayed,

But He stood. And for a moment brief as lightning I knew,
though my mind retreated to darkness quickly again:
though beaten and torn, bruised and aching,
before me stood, more than I'd seen stand before
was, no doubt, the Creator, the King.