Passion Considered

Does it feel real? Crouching
in the evening chill while
leaves overhead silver in the breeze
I struggle for wakefulness
even in this cold. He is not asleep
but staring in the dark closes the eyes 
on my blank mind. A sudden cough 
startles but the numbness returns.
A lone insect whirrs and in the city
a child calls for its mother
as the feet stir the dead leaves
and the torches come
and the kiss betrays. Lord, 
I whisper, I should have watched.

Is it real? The weight of wood

is real enough, but my bearing it

seems beyond bearing and cannot be.

The slow steps seem not mine,

but made by someone

I cannot bear to inhabit. The nails

oh the nails

hotly sliding through the jolt

the hammer makes

in my body in my body

in my body in my body

two strokes each

the strokes of an expert -

it is done. Up, up – lifted up and over

the heads of the crowd I see

the city in the noon light and know

this eternity will not last long

but is it real? 


It is finished. Is it 
accomplished? Your words, Lord.
The emptiness is there still
as the untimely darkness covers 
my failure to attend. The cross still
stands, but empty now. Empty.

©C.M.M.