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A poem for Good Friday
Detail from The Crucifixion by Giotto
I.N.R.I.
A rough quiet was universal in the grain,
The world was sunk with a thud in its post-hole,
The land planed smooth with a dead calm
On a rude length of wood. This somber season
Lends itself to bare scenes
Seen in bone white of moon.
Sorrow’s sisters, the winter constellations
Sink below spring’s crowned horizons
To lend the cruel thorn of remembrance to time
As old cares cease with cold easterlies
Like history’s cessation itself.
Seasons hewn down and lumbered out,
These ordinary passages
Are timbered to mean less with knowledge.
And so, drawing us close to a return
From exile, our souls, sand blasted
In desert treks, are polished like bone
To dry exultations. Cuttings and witherings
Are tossed to burn, texts of ash on our tongues.
—It is the loneliest madness to know.
And yet, even as the moon rises,
Dividing the sea up in a surge,
So, too, the huge will of the eternal
Will interpolate exalted
Histories, bitterly salted, old and new,
With nature dethroned, denuded as never before
And man besieged, bereft as never again.
So, our wills now testify to deserts,
Our minds return to wilderness.
Our hearts hold crossed-lengths of wood
Blood-soaked in a single word saying,
All time is made minion of
The rising horror of love, love
Risen once in a creak of wood
Rising ever in a darkened sky
Risen again, in the closing book,
Rising ever in the suffering eye.
So we give up the world’s passions
For one passion. And naked thus we pray:
We will drink not now to drink no more
We will eat not now to eat no more
We will feast not now to eat and drink forever.
Joseph O’Brien is the poetry editor for the San Diego Reader.
Here's something you might be interested in.
A poem for Good Friday
A poem for Good Friday
Detail from The Crucifixion by Giotto
I.N.R.I.
A rough quiet was universal in the grain,
The world was sunk with a thud in its post-hole,
The land planed smooth with a dead calm
On a rude length of wood. This somber season
Lends itself to bare scenes
Seen in bone white of moon.
Sorrow’s sisters, the winter constellations
Sink below spring’s crowned horizons
To lend the cruel thorn of remembrance to time
As old cares cease with cold easterlies
Like history’s cessation itself.
Seasons hewn down and lumbered out,
These ordinary passages
Are timbered to mean less with knowledge.
And so, drawing us close to a return
From exile, our souls, sand blasted
In desert treks, are polished like bone
To dry exultations. Cuttings and witherings
Are tossed to burn, texts of ash on our tongues.
—It is the loneliest madness to know.
And yet, even as the moon rises,
Dividing the sea up in a surge,
So, too, the huge will of the eternal
Will interpolate exalted
Histories, bitterly salted, old and new,
With nature dethroned, denuded as never before
And man besieged, bereft as never again.
So, our wills now testify to deserts,
Our minds return to wilderness.
Our hearts hold crossed-lengths of wood
Blood-soaked in a single word saying,
All time is made minion of
The rising horror of love, love
Risen once in a creak of wood
Rising ever in a darkened sky
Risen again, in the closing book,
Rising ever in the suffering eye.
So we give up the world’s passions
For one passion. And naked thus we pray:
We will drink not now to drink no more
We will eat not now to eat no more
We will feast not now to eat and drink forever.
Joseph O’Brien is the poetry editor for the San Diego Reader.
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