The Mortal Silence

The Mortal Silence

(“As they led Jesus away, Simon, a man from Cyrene, was coming in from the fields. They forced him to carry Jesus’ cross and to walk behind him.” Luke 23:26)

There was nothing peaceful about it,
the clouds were leaden upon a graphite sky.
The body politik and the rest of us, (anger and sickness)
saw events transpire for the best of us and so we cried
to send the one most like us down the avenue of shame.

Fires bled in our eyes, boiling over from the first boot
on our necks
to our last breath (and yet our feet were tattooed as well).

I misunderstood every word, tried to right and wrong the
whole day to death. I shouted with the crowd, I cursed the
powers that occupied us like slaves, I was with and against,
as my heart burst outside the courtroom and within the
reflexes of oppression. Yet I pressed closer to
the blazing procession, a day for the dead.

I saw death where people sang like mardi gras,
I saw life in the pierced head, the welts like a
pollock painting on the back of the fainting one
whose breath came as slow as summer wadis.
I saw strength in the stumbling,
power in the fainting,
and something else, something without a name.

They cast their words at him, dashing them against him
like stones through a glass wall. They were right after all,
and the lynching lasted far into the afternoon.

I did not volunteer, nor did I imagine I would hear the
turpitude wound around my own soul like shackles.
I was conscripted and took the beam, the angry
crossbar with its weight centered across my shoulders.
I knew the drill; it was all too common on this hill
where so many were hanged like cursed fruit from a tree.

But he. He was. My breath escapes and does not return.
But he. He was. His life escapes and so has the sun.
But he. He was. His eyes were fire and life and gold.
But he. He was. I was tired, compelled, and old.

Old as sin is what they say in the country. But he. He was.
Older. 

How does the Ancient of Days walk to the auction block?
How does Eternity Past put his feet on the same path as mine?
I was compelled. But he. He was.

Not repelled by the worst of us. And I, I loved this
weakest of kings, this dying god, and stayed as he
gave his life away.

He was. He is king over my erratic thinking,
and lord-in-love to a world still addicted (some in
His name)
to mining for violence. He was. He is
only found in the compelled quietness,
the mortal silence of tears of offender
and offended.