Psalm 30

Eyes closing, I drift in time and watch my
Father counting rusty nails one by one
And dear Mother the gallons of water
Clear and cool in the hand-hewn cistern
But this morning I look down
And count my ribs in unceasing pain

I heave in air from the midday heavens
And remember the scripted and dark night:
Messiah bird caught in a fowlers net.
I, brought down to tears in a garden
And rough, soldier hands, wear a
Crown of thorns for the world to see

My friend, Iscariot, Judas, I see
His eyes in every skull gazing at me
Abandoned by God and man, darkness comes
To hold me between Heaven and Earth
To pour out the nothingness
I have, my blood and final breaths

The seed, I said, must fall into the ground
And now I am falling, falling so deep
Absent from Heaven I descend into Hell
I am weakness now, spent, beyond life
But it’s my aloneness that’s died.
In the cool of the dawn, the stone rolls…

…away! I breathe the stale tomb air in thanks
The angels and I sing songs and we dance
Then stop: the scent of spices makes us hide.
Like children disguised, we dig the rich earth
Leaking joy. Knowing the women can
Only hold a little, I say, ‘Mary!’