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