Holy Saturday. The Place of the Skull [guest post by Ruth Harrison]

[One of my favorite poems; written by Ruth Harrison and especially appropriate on this day]

Holy Saturday. The Place of the Skull

Yet dare I’ almost be glad I do not see

   That spectacle…

   –John Donne, “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward”

Innocent wood … you knew one grand design:

Growing in grain—your fibered cells align

By laws you followed as an absolute

From high and wind-scarred bough to your dark root—

Crossroad for birds, you were—a shade, a lee…

How is it now, to be the morning tree?

Was it chance chose you out from all the rest?

Or a divine election: Here’s the best,

Higher than all, and sound, and straight in grain,

Easy to hew, to shape with adz and plane

(Squirrels fled in the fallen leaf, and mice

Deserted nests under trampling feet). Once— twice

The ax bit through your side, and sap ran warm

In April air. It seemed a Friday storm

That shook your limbs and pierced your living heart

Until your self gave way and fell. No art

Could then undo the breaking. Were you bred

To host the one we followed, and were fed—?

What is it now that stains each empty arm

Darker than pitch, that marks you cruciform?

I will not ask the way you came.  I saw,

Followed the stumbling steps, the judgment raw

Upon his head, all caught in thorny crown;

I watched us all skulk off, saw him fall down.

I said I didn’t know him. That was true—

I knew a man with answers, someone who

Pulled fish out of the air, handed out bread

From empty sleeves until the thousands fed,

Healed blindness, mocked the money-men—and I

Believed Him when he said we wouldn’t die.

Died like a thief, he did, a common clod…

Now, tree, who’d look at you, and think him God

Whose God forsook him, left him drinking gall

And didn’t crook a finger to forestall

The crumbling Kingdom—and the borrowed tomb…

Is this the mustard seed … the life to come?

And what wings hover now above you, tree,

Against the empty sky, where God should be?

No bird would seek to nest and shelter yet

In your bare arms’ Golgotha. He’d forget

Whatever song he knows upon your rack

Feeling a dead man always at his back.

I couldn’t watch the end—hid like a fish

Brushed by the net … Sheol! I only wish

I’d kept the ear I took! I can’t believe

The story’s dead … There’ll come a time to grieve…

He named me Rock— hah. Well, I’m turned to stone—

One more of his illusions overthrown.

Tree … that you still were living, giving shade

To something more than ants. —I am afraid.

Whoever seeks you now looks for another—

And I am marrow-cold— cannot think further

Than that tomorrow’s dead, that yesterday

Killed hope, killed promise of a finer way.

With boat, with net and sea I could have striven…

To what cruel use men shape the world that’s given.

The Life he promised, tree, is all undone …

How is it now to be the Chosen One?

                                                   —Ruth Harrison

[From How Singular and Fine, © 2012. Used by permission]