Staring at Crimson Skies

Staring at Crimson Skies

(“But I tell you, don’t resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” Matthew 5:39)

Why did they leave you there fainting by the side of the road,
staring at the crimson skies,
listening for the voices that would tell you why
we pay to watch cage fights and celebrate winners with
their bibles dripping on blood?
You were the brave one, weren’t you?
You were the vision we wish for
but hardly ever cheer for.

The dust encrusts your face where
anonymous fists tried to put you in your place.
The fading sun may soothe your wounds,
the mouths of clinical experts recite chapter
and
verse,
but few matter these days. And yet,
I believe next to you,
I pray my time along with you,
I recognize your wounds, the same as many before
who
wandered closer to the Human One
than big-haired pulpit bumpers who
fight the tide every Sunday like they have control
over moon, and ocean, and rivers, and flood.

They would speak in tongues over you,
curse the person who laid you down in the mud.
But would they wonder why
their fighting words, their demon takedowns,
their back-alley fistfights with powers and principalities
only stoke the fires of rage and lock the cage matches
so no one gets out alive?

I know you. I recognize your face, though the blood has
dried,
and the burns from their fiery words still sizzle.
You are, perhaps more than anyone I’ve observed,
the unread gospel,
the unheard proclamation,
that somewhere we may find the way to
follow
the Prince of peace
once again.