This week, I’ve gotten to theme some of my poetry around that week 2,000 years ago that rocked the entire cosmos — the week Jesus died.
//day 9// triumphal entry
The day the king arrived,
The crowds burst forth in cheers —
Here was he who’d save them from
Their iron-fisted fears!
Hearts stirred thick with hope;
Lips broke forth with song;
Nothing could restrain the cries
As the rider came along.
Astride the beast, a man
Who brought the dead to life —
Could he be the promised one
Who’d crush the Roman might?
Hosanna, king who comes!
Oh save us, you who ride!
Conquer the black foe who has
Our heartland occupied!
//day 10// clearing the temple
The still before the storm
Came the night before.
Now tables hit the floor
Beneath His mighty arm.
The coins and creatures sprawl,
The temple-market closed,
The den of thieves exposed
By the fearsome God of all.
//day 13// the last supper
— a sonnet
{It Was Night.}
Around the table, thirteen men gathered
To celebrate a feast of life and death.
The lamb had died that men might draw their breath
A thousand years ago, but now it matter’d
More than escaping Death’s dark blade that once.
Unlike all other nights, unlike that blood
That dried, this blood is life, this flesh is food;
This is no wool-curled sheep, but Heaven’s Prince;
He rescues not a nation, but a race;
The sacrifice is not for once, but all;
If those twelve men had known their master’s face
Would bear the death and curse of Adam’s fall,
They would have trembled at the hope fulfilled,
For yet redemption’s path was steeped in red.
//day 14// the crucifixion
A ball is spinning blue and black,
a globe shrouded
in darkness,
as the Lord
Who made it
is rent —
body from soul —
and shrouded
in the heart
of the earth.
Highlands of Halaran 