Darkness at Noon

To see the love here in its labours lost
our eyes must grow accustomed to the dark.
They see it best who sorrow at his side,
the mother and the friend who loved him most.

They see his harrowed flesh, the blood, the dirt.
They feel the pangs that wrench him from the wood
and hurl him back, torn, tethered by the nails.
They hear his silent thirsting for his God.

The darkness darker than the dread of death
descends as though God de-created light.
He enters our despairing need of God,
the twisted traumas of our loss of faith.

The darkness bears down on him like the weight
of all the sorrows of this blighted earth.
Compassion throbs through all his weary pain.
His love grows strongest as his powers abate.

So with the love that lightens all, he blessed
his mother and the friend he loved the best.

Richard Bauckham