Rent: A Poetic Reflection on Good Friday

“The watchmen that went about the city found me, They smote me, they wounded me; The keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, If ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, That I am sick of love.”

– Song of Solomon 5:7-8

“And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.”

– Mark 15:38

Like sung thunder reverberant
Cut zagging across the dimscape,
Like lit fury seaming a vein Empyrial
Across time’s ravel,
It is torn,
The drape, tear-wasted,
Ripped stark of stature,
Leaving God nude
As the man hung wracked
In embrace of board,
Nail and board.

The spill of holiness
Insinuating out,
Seeping out,
The spill of holiness
Leaking forth love
Like the rooted breast at suck,
Singly milds the night;
The spill of holiness
Drunk and gentle
In a rage of love
Souses earth with form,
Miraculous form.

Rocks split like hearts
Melting at the touch of grace
And the dead dance,
Dance
Decant the newness of wine,
The redness of blood;
Rich of life,
Ruddied,
Mud-studded lovely things,
These corpses -jewels and bones,
An assembly of saints –
Dance.

The keepers of holiness scramble,
For God, your God, is out of his cage;
Wild air electric sorrow,
The perilous cup.

It builds to a tantamount,
Then plunge O my falcon
O my chevalier scarred
To the bottom of hell
And the people left wondering
Spare-eyed and awkward,
“He said it is finished
But what now and how -”

The air stings holy,
Rough as new beginnings,
And the bite of longing wind,
New stranded, standard-stripped, naked of princes,
Wangles with life,
Blushing rose
Like a maelstrom got giddy
In love made like death:

Passion must eager,
The patten have pierce.