He is on his way,
the king of the Jews;
on his way to
the arid hill,
the place of the skull,
the citadel of death;
on his way as criminal to
the shadowy hill,
the hill of stringing up
above the blood soaked mud
damp with fear and despair.
His body droops
and slumps,
a lattice of lashes,
sliced to the bone,
oozing and dripping,
weeping and stinging,
weighed down like a donkey
loaded with betrayal.
He is on his way
through the stone cold streets
of cheering and jeering,
and the staring and silence
of those who
saw advantage
in selling him out,
a cheap price for peace.
“How dare he
presume to be
messiah or prophet,
healer or king!
How dare he defend
the defenceless and
claim to be more
than an obscure
worker of wood.
How dare he be the purveyor
of hope,
and challenge the order,
the all conquering order.”
The Nazarene is
on his way,
on his way
to the foot of the hill,
walking in heavy steps,
walking with a weight
that is not given by the crude
piece of wood
dragging beside his
death-stripped body.
And at the hill
there he stands,
stands bent
looking out
to the mount,
looking out with
blood smeared eyes,
standing gaunt in a weighty cloth,
a cloth
that hangs across his body,
that hangs
splattered like modern art.
Now he is lowering
onto the hewn wood,
the crude wood,
the cruel wood
that never he touched till now,
as he is stretching out
and feeling
the splinters’ touch,
sensing the rough wooden cross,
on his tender stripes of meat;
and waiting for the steel to drop,
for the steel to drop
on hands and feet,
and the blood to course
and trickle,
and the wounds to hold him
captive to his
lungs have no more breath.
These hands that touched,
these hands that touched
the leper’s eyes,
these hands that
touched that sacred
spot of humankind,
now held in deathly grip
of rusty iron.
He is on his way,
on his way
up and out
to the sky,
naked to
his executioners’
familiar gaze,
and blurring in the leaking,
dripping, flowing
tears of those near
and a silhouette of sorrow
for the ones
that cared to believe,
cared to wish for
a world beyond tears,
a place
above the steel that takes
a life,
that steals
a breath.
23/3/2016
