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El Greco
(Domenikos
Theotokopoulos), detail, “Christ Carrying the Cross,” 1580
Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York City
Courtesy
Wikipedia
Commons
"That is
Christ, Father. The Greek painted Our Saviour." (J. F. Powers, "Prince
of Darkness," Vintage Books, 1947)
Listen
to Pavel read "Crucifixion Being Slow..." (MP3 format)
CRUCIFIXION BEING
SLOW…
An old woman helped from
a wheelchair to a pew—
“Let them shoot me like a
horse when I’m as weak as you”
But Jesus looking down
from the anguish of the wood
Nodded in His agony and
said He understood:
For I would not have
hung here, if there had been a way
To compass a
deliverance and get around this day,
But all that I could
see was the working of the will
To hang Me on this
bloody cross, and I am hanging still
Everyone who sees Me
must suffer much the same,
Whether in their own
sweet time, or whether in My name,
Everything that
flourishes knows that it must be:
The children of My
charity must come along with Me
But when My heart
descended to pump the mortal blood,
Then from the wounded
side of Me came sorrow in a flood,
Crucifixion being
slow, could not these men instead
Swiftly with an edge
of steel cut off My sacred head?
FROM THE HOLLOW
FUTURE…
From the hollow future
Came something that would
happen,
Concussion everywhere
That roared against a membrane
It was so long ago,
The hottest day of
summer,
I never have forgotten
How violent the terror
Future and the past,
It tore the world apart,
The feared foretelling
blast
Tore out the city’s heart
Will it now descend,
The bright destroying
star?
It will not long delay
The future is not far
Yet perhaps a branch
That never bore a tree,
A crucifix to which
I never bent a knee
A crucifix that never
Held the corpus of
The Crucified of cities,
Annihilated love
UNTIL THROUGH
THIS
I thought that we had
wandered far
Beyond the light of any
star,
And there in darkness
looked behind
But nothing in the dark
could find
It was the inner universe
Where Christ can weep and
Job can curse,
It was the soul’s
profound abyss:
The scorpion, the Judas
kiss
Each is lost inside each
one,
Father this is chaos
come,
Children I was helpless
too
Until through this I came
to you
A VISION
How strange! I saw the
planet from above
Clear and bright and
cloudless
Azure sea, transparent
atmosphere
The land, its shapes, and
cities too
Then disturbance on a
coast I will not name
Now the memory has faded
Then a flight of fighter
planes
Swooping, dipping like a
flight of birds
And finally a little bird
itself
Fluttering amongst the
squadron –
The little bird descended
toward the Earth
I swept around the
world’s rim slowly
From high above, as if in
orbit,
Eyes without a body I
could sense,
But then could recognize
no more—
Interference by the
planes shut off my vision
I think those aircraft
were not earthly
And the future is
forbidden
Yet, there will occur a
nearer time
When what has come to be
Will be no further hidden
THE ANCIENT
SORROW
Look at my linen
trousers,
Spattered drops of red,
A sacrifice to suffer
The spiritual dead
We are close and far
Sleeping and awake,
Souls are what we are
Which time can never
break
Life is the spirit
living,
But the spirit of the
life
Is sacrificed by giving
What never felt the knife
Priest I do not
borrow,
I give the wounds of
Me,
Five and the ancient
sorrow
Of lonely agony
OUT OF BABYLON
I have no harp to hang
upon a willow,
Nor memory of any home or
homeland,
No Galilee of hillsides
saffron yellow,
No Sharon of the
vineyards to defend
But I can sing memorials
of sadness
To what I never knew but
can defend,
It is my precious
fatherland of witness,
My motherland of glory
without end
If I ever strike the
chords of exile
And then renounce the
melody of honor,
Let me sing of Mary for a
while
And soon I will remember
to adore her
For she will give me
every song I sing
And out of Babylon her
children bring
SENTINEL
Heron in the morning shade,
Pool beneath the fallen tree,
How can such a form display
The commonplace of mystery?
Virgin of the silent dawn
Before the sun has reached the rim,
Gentle-blue and pure of form,
Sentinel announce the wind
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