Thorwald's Cross: Easter Sunday, 2014

With wars and rumors of wars in the news, I found myself haunted this Easter by Thomas Hardy's "Channel Firing." This sonnet represents my attempt to respond in faith. Thorwald's Cross on the Isle of Man in England is a Viking stone that depicts the death of the old Norse gods as the Norsemen embraced Christianity. For a fuller discussion of this kind of symbolism, see Malcolm Guite's incomparable Faith, Hope and Poetry.  Thanks to my student and co-worker Rochelle Roots for the accompanying photo of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem.

We look for resurrection in the East,

But east of east find resurrected war

In nations that proclaim the paschal feast,

Salute the cross of Sunday's risen Lord.

He laid down life and emptied out the tomb.

We cling to live and fill a million graves.

Our one-eyed Odin scatters right-hand boon

But on his blind-side takes more than he gave.

Ragnarök rises from Yggdrasil's tree,

While Calvary's Lord's unblinking, two-eyed stare

Knits love and knowledge. He can hear and see

The dying revolutionary's prayer.

We fill up graves to keep our grave unfilled,
But emptied tombs tell us how death is killed.

A Corona of Thorns: Sonnets for the Stations of the Cross

7. Christ is Placed in the Tomb

The breath of God returns now to its birth,

The second Adam’s dust to Adam’s dust.

Some spices seek to cheat devouring Earth

Of her fair prey for Eden’s broken trust.

Through Him one son, one daughter dodged the grave,

And Lazarus the grave clothes shortly left,

Undid their dying ‘til another day:

But death’s Undoer’s now been done to death.

With Roman signs and soldiers seal the tomb

To guard from those whom fear now holds in ward.

With bars and bolts lock up the upper room

To ward off those whom fear now keeps on guard.

And silently inside the tomb Christ lies:

Here falls he last to know that he must rise.

A Corona of Thorns: Sonnets for the Stations of the Cross

6. Christ Dies on the Cross

He clothes our naked guilt with his last breath

Breathed out to shape a small child’s bedtime prayer.

The breath of life now stopped by breathless death

Commits itself into to the Father’s care.

From Adam’s nostrils God’s gift now withdrawn

That finished Eden’s work and gave us life.

Our bodies nothing now but fleshy brawn,

Our days now nothing but survival’s strife.

The One whose Breath once brooded on the deep

Of chaos’ void and called forth dark’s first light

Now sinks in darkened night and breathless sleep,

That suffocates our souls in airless plight.

They free his corpse. They handle mangled earth.

The breath of God returns now to its birth.

A Corona of Thorns: Sonnets for the Stations of the Cross

5. Christ is Stripped of His Garments

He, naked, waits for hate’s uplifting stroke,

An emptied bucket dancing in the air,

Foul spittle’s target, butt of scoffing jokes:

With God nailed safely what will men not dare?

The first blood ever drawn by him was shed

To make a cloak for our first parents’ shame.

Now his own blood he offers in our stead

And hangs exposed, uncovered, blasted, blamed.

What hope for naked sinners when the King

Of Heaven lifted high for all to see

Lacks any veil to veil his suffering?

What hiding place for us now can there be?

Our Covering uncovered covers us:
He clothes our naked guilt with his last breath.

A Corona of Thorns: Sonnets for the Stations of the Cross

4. Christ Addresses the Women of Jerusalem

He turns our tears to those for whom he weeps:

The victims of war’s purple testament.

A woman’s tenderness of heart he seeks

To see the price of power, and lament.

The tree he bears, though dead, is green with hope

Of life lived out in meek humility,

And violence overcome by love’s wide scope,

And ending of the sword’s futility.

We weep beside the way of Calvary’s cross,

Yet set aside our crosses for the way

Of swords drawn to revenge our pain and loss,

And yet more swords in yet a drier day.

‘Neath our false tears he falls yet full of hope

And naked waits for hate’s uplifting stroke.

A Corona of Thorns: Sonnets for the Stations of the Cross

3. Saint Veronica Wipes the Face of Christ

A human hand here helps a human God

To clear his sight. He who has healed the blind

Is blinded now by sweat and salty blood.

She can’t stop cruelty, but she can be kind.

The first veil ruined on this ruined day

Is freely given. Face to face she sees

The face of him who walks for her this Way

Of Sorrow, slave who slaves to set her free.

Like all we give to Christ this cloth comes back

Infused with that true icon of his gaze.

She bears his victory in a simple swatch

Of linen set with sacred blood ablaze.

We never see his face in what we keep.
He turns our tears to those for whom he weeps.

A Corona of Thorns: Sonnets for the Stations of the Cross

2. Christ Falls the Second Time

He falls again to find he cannot rise,

Though inclination be as sharp as will.

This body no mere seeming, no disguise,

The God-Man truly man, for good or ill.

A Roman sword athwart a pilgrim’s way

Derails devotion, unslays sacrifice.

A passerby who longs his lamb to slay

Must now by-pass that plan to pay this price.

Though from the temple courts now balked by blood

Of man from shedding blood of goat or bull,

He leads a truer lamb behind this rood,

Enters a truer temple at the Skull.

Diverted from the way he would have trod,

A human hand here helps a human God.

A Corona of Thorns: Sonnets for the Stations of the Cross

1. Christ Falls the First Time

Here falls he first and knows that he must rise.

On this flint bosom her condemned Lord

Would snuggle as the swaddled infant lies,

These public stones his secret, stable ward.

A rude beginning when there was no room

Makes now less rued this resting from the rood.

They would have stoned him when it was too soon,

Now seeks he stones to bathe with salty rheum.

But yet redemption lies a weary way

Ahead and Roman pikes yet pry and prod,

A seven-sentence sermon yet to say,

A hangman yet to name him Son of God.

He rises, struggles onward for the prize,

Then falls again to find he cannot rise.