The Rite of Reconciliation

(Good Friday)

 

Today is an awful day

Tomorrow will be worse

The certainly of death

And burial inside stone

With a heavy rock in front

To certify the edict

That this one had to perish

Officially executed

The end of a movement, too

And all the trouble pricking

Consciousness he caused

The subcutaneous agenda

 

The wife of Herod should be pleased

Another body to dissect

For an abomination-treasury

 

We learn today that life is cheap

That perfect people die

What hope for the rest of us

Whose morality is mingled

With selfish purpose,

Craven understanding

 

Caiaphas has won

Pilate has been mollified

Lip-service to Rome

The mob will lose its agitation

Everyone will leave

The oppressiveness of daily life return

I guess no one anticipates Masada

 

Those who should know better still

Will suffer

Grim happiness is undercut

By that which greed denies

There is a lesson here

It will be hardest on believers

Who do not falter

Who must face the scorn of those who

Will not look at them at judge them silently

 

The faithful hurt in many ways

The killing spirit spread throughout the land

No one in the firing squad knows

Who shot the fatal bullet

Unanimity in anonymity

Everyone’s a killer

 

The ire today is awful

The void tomorrow will be awfuller

We say now we wouldn’t do it

Look around, we do it every day

 

C L Couch

 

 

Aerial view of Masada (Hebrew מצדה), in the Judaean Desert (Hebrew: מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה‎, Arabic: صحراء يهودا), with the Dead Sea in the distance.

Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25671212