| | 3. Jesus
That his several wounds continued to express
a bright result, that still the sanguine flow
coursed tincturing the creases of his cheek
and wended as he walked to bless the bleak,
plutonic path with crimson script declaring
just how grave the way that he had come,
that underfoot the very clay he traveled
sank beneath an unaccustomed weight
occurs as no surprise. That he was glad
is largely otherwise, as would be the news
that every sprawling figure found en route
acquired at his approach an aspect far
more limpid than the lot that lay ahead.
As if his passing gained for hell itself
a vivifying agency, each shade
along the way rose startled, blinking, at once
aware that each had been, until this moment,
languishing, until this moment, dead.
Thus, suddenly aware that each among
the withered crowd had by his presence met
a sudden quickening, the multitude
made glad by his descent inclined to join
him on the path recovering each loss,
exulting in each past made newly present.
His etched face luminous and very flesh
made brilliant by the unremitting pulse,
he gains the farthest reaches where the ache
of our most ancient absence lay. He lifts
our mother and our father from beneath
the mindless river, draws them to himself, and turns.
-- Scott Cairns
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| | Posted 7/23/2008 9:56 PM - 7 views - 0 comments
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