Entertaining Elegance


Incognizant of shame,
I watched as they carried off
his sopping scarlet, loose-wrapped body
down the empty trail,
away to where they planned to dress
and store its heavy coldness;
then cautiously abandon Him who
had left them in their brittle tears,
swollen, socket-eyed incredulity
as He bled out the breath within their lungs.

Incognizant of shame,I starkly stood as statue as
the curious, the strangers,
and sadistic voyeurs who
knew none of these three outlaws on whom
justice dined that day,
this straggling crowd of gawkers who
strolled back to the town to think
about the evening meal.

Incognizant of shame,
I stared as soldiers, guards, officials
plied their trade, followed duty's protocol
to gather tools, clear the hill,
sign off for unmarked burials
of two more thugs in Potter's Field,
trying hard to let routine
replace their thoughts of blackened sun,
shaking earth and sweaty panic
of the recent hour.

Incognizant of shame,
I slowly walked into, against and through
the downward flow of last departing souls;
I, drawn toward the center one
of those now empty, sprawled,
abandoned and uprooted timber crossbeams
left as red-slick, stinking discard in the dirt
for nighttime creatures to discover,
lick the scent before it dried,
competing with a motley crowd
of winged and furry silhouettes
who would tonight come hunched and crawling
there beneath a hollow moon.

Incognizant of shame,
my knees collapsed in drying mud
of body fluids, waste and gall,
with blurry eyes I stared into the residue
of what had happened there;
strained to sort the magic from the sacred,
sift the truth from dogma,
find God's face in all of this.
Reaching out, I gripped that crude, misshapened,
blood-oiled peg of iron
and wailed.

Copyright (c) 2009 Gary Brown