Poem for Today

Good Friday
Rest your aching limbs, listen to the silence,
As your heartbeat quickens at the golden dawn
Of the fast awakened day; seeing the sunrise stretched
Long before you, as a leopard, full, contented, rests.
The early hour belies the waking man who moves
Fast toward the earth that is his Mother, pleading
To become part of her, to rest within her arms,
To find the perfect peace that will not come.


Now the sun performs its daily task, unhindered
By the scudding cloud. The haze of heat is seen
To copulate with the horizon, creating strange life
That dances before your eyes like some ballerina.
Still no respite, and yet the hour draws nearer now:
Your mind answers the surging question-mark deep
Within your brain. The time is almost come as
Shadows fall across the sky, bringing oblivion.


Dryness forms a stinging pain around your eyes,
Around your mouth, deep down in your inner self;
Yet surrender will not come to please the watchers,
Waiting, like vultures, to pick clean your bones.
So, now it three of the after hour, and you know
The time, the second, the eclipse of your life, now
It is reached! It is done! It is over, and yet
You know that this end signifies a new beginning.


Soon they will tear you down and lay you on your back.
That those who cared will have the broken shell that
Now is you; to weep over, to carry to your place;
To hide, awaiting the ravages of time’s passage.
Yet — and this they do not know — you are Him,
The One. He who could cheat Death of his prize.
After the hours have passed for three journeys
The stone will turn, revealing you gone and yet come.


What was this passing hour? Was it really ultimate truth?
Should we ask forgiveness for our inner soul’s
Misdeeds, that we might join you? When the sun
Shades the day once more then we shall know.
© 1978 : Colin Gordon-Farleigh