Evocative names - Gethsemane, Golgotha, Emmaus,
echoing in the streets of Guildford, Godalming, Esher –
exotic relics from a quaint and bygone culture,
or eternal stations of the cross?
A garden watered with tears of blood –
Gethsemane, where love and sorrow meet,
giving the lie to the myth of the passionless god,
greeting betrayal with tears and a kiss.
Politics and piety conspire to hang three men
with pain unthinkable, and breathless, searing thirst.
The promised paradise seems far away from
the place of the skull, called Golgotha.
What's to come? A dusty road, a walk,
two wondering at the truth of the women's report
will wait and greet a third, and wander on
and wake to broken bread and hope reborn at Emmaus.
echoing in the streets of Guildford, Godalming, Esher –
exotic relics from a quaint and bygone culture,
or eternal stations of the cross?
A garden watered with tears of blood –
Gethsemane, where love and sorrow meet,
giving the lie to the myth of the passionless god,
greeting betrayal with tears and a kiss.
Politics and piety conspire to hang three men
with pain unthinkable, and breathless, searing thirst.
The promised paradise seems far away from
the place of the skull, called Golgotha.
What's to come? A dusty road, a walk,
two wondering at the truth of the women's report
will wait and greet a third, and wander on
and wake to broken bread and hope reborn at Emmaus.