Holy Week poems

 “I am he” is the seismic center.
It spreads in expanding rings.
The bodies fall outward,
circle a setting sun.
Torches, lanterns, weapons,
a bloody face, arrest
and betrayals spin,
but the center holds.
Even so, night deepens.
Even so, this unbearable cold.
(John 18:1-27)

 
*******
“What is truth?”
the politician asks,
not sticking
around for an answer.
The question hangs
in the air while
the man born
to be king awaits
his coronation
in silence.
(John 18:28-40)

 
*******
Out of the pierced side
of the God who is dead
flow all the terrors
of all the nights
the rapes the abductions
the children lost and
the mothers mourning
sirens and sleeplessness
thunder in far off places
the confusion of the archangels
and all my tears, all my sorrows
carried in the stream
that flows from his side.
(John 19:28-42)