Trimming a rose bush
A thorn finds its way through
the soft joint of my garden gloves
I imagine a crown of them digging into my flesh
and blink the thought away, let it catch in the pile
of sheared off branches
and fade in the sunlight
but later I’m still thinking of You,
Your scored back,
Your pierced brow
the blood in your eyes.
I wonder if death was a relief,
or was it still foreign to You
shocking as cold water
That Friday,
God breathed in death like water,
opened His lungs to a flood,
let them choke on it,
forty days and nights
so the world wouldn’t have to
I turn from images of Your suffering.
To see You that way,
crushed and bleeding,
bowing your head to death
as if it were the end—
is a wall, a closed door,
a debt unforgiven.
So in the spring I throw thoughts of Your pain
away, away from me like rose stems
Tetelestai.
Finished, You said. Your death was the end
of death, the beginning of life.
On Sunday You were delivered
from the womb of the earth,
thorns exchanged for golden light
No longer a dying man,
condemned and reviled
Now a victor, a King.
I see You this way, in triumph and glory.
Knowing what it took to get You there,
I hold restoration in tear-filled eyes.
You shed the wounds like a shroud—
and someday I will wake to find mine
in Your tomb beside them
Here I live, in the gnarled brambles of Friday,
Saturday,
yet I know Your Sunday, one day
will be my Sunday too.
Beautiful and stirring. Loved it!
Beautiful! Thank you!