Good Friday Tenebrae

In the gathering gloom we gathered
in an out-of-place Gothic cathedral
rising above nail salons and wig shops  
policed by the poverty of sirened fear, 
and we heard of The One nailed
and crowned to the taunts and jeers
of steely drunken soldiers
anointing courage with vinegared wine.

In the descending doom of evening,
light through the stained-glass windows faded,
obscuring the pictures of divine life shining there
until eventually all we saw of Christ the King  
was a tangle of lead like that that tipped the whip
beating a bloody course of chaos across meaning
as one by one dimly burning wicks were snuffed out
and humanity’s degradation, lifted up in darkness,
rose higher with the simple cry, “Forgive.”


                                                 © 2006, Tess Lockhart.  All rights reserved.