5 Excerpts from "Via Crucis" (from Stations of Light)

 

II JESUS TAKES UP THE CROSS

I take up permeable substance

I take your durable olive of Solomon’s temple up

I take up this Cedar of Lebanon, Dogwood of the Second Covenant


O Citron of Babylon, Cinnamon of Malabar

I take you up, so bloom like a lily,

O bastard Crux Grammata

I take up your gamma contours and annular rings

Sephirah! The memory of your blossoms, I take them up.

 

I take up the profligate beauty of your ramification

I take you up to grow in my light

In shadow and in shade I take your right angles up

Under sun that blooms under my power

Mair, Cross upon the wombs

of the idols of Hittites, I take you up

I leave my blood upon your limbs

I leave this kiss upon your porous mettle

 

I take you up, for of your mettle lyres are made

I take up and bear your dead weight,

I bear your dead weight

I bear your nut-brown flesh

I carry your body absent

of new green growth

I raise and see you,

indigenous to India and Ceylon

I take to the streets narrow with drear

I take follow the way narrow with drear

I lift up your perpendiculars of marrow,

your coarse bark

I hoist you, O, almond of awakening,

apple of forbidden, fig of spirit—

Myrtle of generosity, I lift you up

Gopher wood of Noah, pomegranate of eternal life,

garnet almug, branch of fork lightning,

cypress of promise—

Given up for you, I take you up

I take you up and eat of you

I marry you

to my flesh

     We assume

the position

 

We

take

                                    the shape of a raptor

or

dove.

 

 

IV JESUS MEETS HIS MOTHER

 

You are all

you could

 

never

stop

 

in me

I am

 

all

you could

 

never imagine

I might be-

 

come. Cry out

at my crowning.

 

Bring life again

See me

 

for all

I am

 

where I stand

at the door

 

between being and not

being. Watch me

 

watching you

know the full

 

force of what

I am

 

so as

to throw it back

           

at me

like a voice.

 

Say “Yes,” again, and

forgive me. Forgive me, Mother,

for you now know

what it is

 

I,

fruit of your womb

 

ripe and having fallen

not

 

far from the tree

now do.

 

 

VI VERONICA WIPES THE FACE OF JESUS

 

 

Take off your veil, Veronica,

Hold it in two hands.

 

Take your veil off, Veronica,

Behold an echo of complexion

 

spelled out in lacrymal ink  

trace blood on sack cloth,

 

immiscible, Veronica,

true

 

enough

to see.

 

Into your hands,

Veronica, the shape of

 

my grimmace,

death mask on a rag.

 

Take that

woven object

 

from your head

Let your hair

 

out. Let your

hair trap light.

 

VIII JESUS MEETS THE WOMEN OF JERUSALEM

 

 

I call out to you where you sit at your hearth among children.

 

I call you to serve, O Rabbis!

 

I call for the power of your mighty blood.

 

Do not stand outside the door while I am calling you.

 

Don’t you hear me? I’m calling you.

 

No more will high priests fear your power.

 

No more shall you be kept from my altar.

 

No woman walks behind me.

 

Givers of birth, I call you,

you who come without swords.

You are my chosen,

you women whom I call to the altar,

you women who console

with words and balm.

           

I call you to serve as priests in my temple.

 

I summon the power of your mighty blood.

           

I call for your strength,

which men fear.

 

I do not fear it.

 

 

 

IX JESUS FALLS FOR THE THIRD TIME

 

 

A halo of cold stars bites the wax of my scalp

 

Mud is all I see

 

No field of vision stretches out ahead various with undulating luster

 

No water of any kind flows

 

Not even tears are clear

 

I no longer hear

Gold Crests, of Sylvia Warblers —

            song covered over

by the hammering in my head

 

No more lilac clouds,

no more swaying

cypress fronds —

 

Neither pomegranates, nor plums

interrupt the deep ache of surrounding din.

No blue mist cools

 

No sapphire night ameliorates

 

No grape to quench

 

 

My flesh shrinks

from any hint of touch

 

I am well-baked

 

 

If there is hope for relief

I have no sense of it

I feel only

down

 

There is nothing

upward in me

 

I am

impenetrable

 

I have no confidence in anything

 

The earth hungers to swallow me whole

                                                I am

 

beyond

 

the certainty that,

well-despised by all I love

I want

nothing

more

 

than to die

right here on this spot

(I won’t get up)

 

on this spot

(I’ll get up)

 

not so very far

but a long way off

 

from where

for no good reason

I was born. 

 

 

 end of excerpt

 

 

 

Michele Madigan Somerville 

Revised. April 2. 2021 

NYC