Holy Week Triptych Two Thousand and Twenty Two. II: Good Friday
Dedicated to the Parish of St George’s Crosby, in the Diocese of Lincoln.
The Third Citation
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”[i].
The Fourth Citation
“And the fire and the rose are one”[ii].
They Gather.
The Nail Bearers.
Carried high,
On fabric linen cushions.
Finest elegant English Hallmarked.
Seven Silver Nails.
They Gather.
The Hole Bearers.
Lube-less.
Tight.
Warm.
Deep.
Welcoming.
Declaiming obedience to their vocational task:
“We have dined at the Feast of Elijah’s Angel[iii].
Well fed are all the deep warm hungry holes of our hearts”.
The Hammer
Of Blood Red Lies.
Banging.
Bullies.
Deeping.
Liars.
Digging.
Propagandists.
Drilling.
Tax
dodgers.
Groaning.
Thugs.
Mining.
War
mongers.
Thudding.
Xenophobes.
Echoing in the valleys beyond the City Walls.
Here time stands.
Holding the weight
Of the Nails
In the Holes.
Here hangs
Divinity
And
Humanity.
Rapt in the meeting
of the Nails
And the Holes.
The ebb and the woof,
The Warp and the flow,
Of the Incarnation.
Greet.
Hold.
Kiss.
Meet.
In warm vulnerable intimate embrace.
Held by the Nails and the Holes.
The Curtain[iv].
Blue.
Purple.
Crimson.
Yarn.
Linen.
Cherubim.
Wrought Cherubim!
An Eternity of Cherubim!
They fall.
Torn.
Rapt in Seraphic Wings.
She wrought her work.
“And the curtain of the Temple was torn in two”[v].
“The Sun’s light failed”[vi].
“From top to bottom”[vii].
“The earth shook…
Rocks were split…
Tombs also were opened”[viii].
On the floor of the Temple
An eternity
Of blue, purple, crimson, cherubim.
In the warmth,
In the safety,
In the Belly,[ix]
In the Cell,
In the Womb,
In the Prison,
In the Tomb.
Christ
Pandemic
Hinged
Glorious
O’er
Their
Covidian
Cross.
The Hammer.
Of Blood Red Lies.
Sits.
For all time.
At the Foot of the Cross.
In every generation.
People pick up the Hammer.
Hinge
Nails
Once
More
In
Holes.
“My tongue is like the pen of a ready
scribe”[x]
Every day,
Poets sharpen pens on
Finest elegant English Hallmarked
Seven Silver Nails.
These,
for all time,
sit at
the Foot of the Cross,
Poets daily dip their pens,
In the Seven Sacred Holes,
Of the Saving Truths,
Of the Saviour's Precious,
Blood
Red
Love.
One
blood red Crown
And on the
Cross, one deep red Crown.
Glistens
tight, and wrapped in thorns.
Virgin
barbed, sharper they hang.
Divine and
human. Gift of God.
And on the
Cross, all is changed.
Glory
hinged, purple rapt.
There for
ever, one blood red Crown.
High on the
Head of Christ, our Judge.
The Second Codex
Truth,
Sits,
Raped.
On England’s flood plains,
Market squares,
And noble institutions.
Raped,
By the finest elegant Hallmarked,
Blood stained,
Seven Silver Talons.
Of the Little English Dragon.
Perfidious Albion.
The Second Codicil
St Andrew,
St David,
St Patrick.
Celtic Pilgrims.
Like Magi.
Search.
In vain.
St George sleeps.
With the
Disciples.
While Jesus Prays.
In the
Garden.
At
Gethsemane.[xi]
Copyright
© Lottie
E. Allen
Passion
Sunday
3 April
In the Year
of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Two.
Footnotes
[i]
Psalm twenty-two, verse one. (NRSV)
[ii]
Four Quartets: Little Gidding (1942). Faber “Collected Poems 1902-1962 T.S.
Eliot” (page 222 of the 1980 Reprint).
[iii]
“Get up, and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you”. I Kings,
chapter nineteen verse seven.
[iv]
“And Solomon made the curtain of blue and purple and crimson fabrics and fine
linen, and worked cherubim into it”. Two Chronicles, chapter three, verse
fourteen.
[v]
Luke chapter twenty-three, verse forty-five.
[vi]
Luke chapter twenty-three, verse forty-five.
[vii]
Mark chapter fifteen, verse thirty-eight.
[viii]
Matthew chapter twenty-seven, verse fifty-one to fifty-two.
[ix]
“But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the
belly of the fish for three days and three nights. The Jonah prayed to the
Lord, his God, from the belly of the fish…. Then the Lord spoke to the fish,
and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land”. Jonah, chapter one, verse seventeen;
chapter two verses one and ten.
[x]
“My heart overflows with a goodly theme; I address my verses to the King; my
tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe”. Psalm Forty-Five, verse one.
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