Meditation on Good Friday

[Guest guest]

the second coming

(Meditation on Good Friday)

 

even though i asked, why did you do it

 

you have whet me with divine love

even though i asked you to do this

when you knew, why did you do it

a tsunami of shifting water is come

a seachange of agony and ecstasy

of waters rolling death into life

 

why did you do it, even though i asked

 

your loves penetrates even my bones

why did you do it when you knew

knowing all you knew how foolish

my soul’s very marrow is salt soaked

drunk on dark waters that quench not

of waters distilling life into death

 

even though i asked, why did you do it

 

now, worn thin by love, love starved

i am becoming a fool for you, beloved

so becoming i am the jest not the jester

my spirit quickens in the salty sunset

lifts its burning wings above the foam

to sail yet again from death into love

 

love more abundant love, endless love

 

i know why you did it beloved

even though you never answer

 

i await you, your second coming, i await

seated on the sands of the western shore

gazing into slanting purple incandescence

i keep watch for the sails of your holy raft

the unsinkable bark of your final salvation

floating me into your illuminating dark arms

 

 

even though you never answer

beloved, i know why you did it

 

that together rocking and rolling the waves

we will change dark sorrow into brilliant bliss

and laughing, laugh salty tears into clear waters

 

your laughter i hear, beloved, i hear your laughter

so i jest, i caper, i laugh at my agony and ecstasy

laughing in your blissful darkening purple haze

i await, my beloved, your returning raft, i await

 

you, just you, only you, beloved, only you, just you, you

must fetch me from these mortal shores and take me home

i await you beloved, your second coming, beloved i await you

 

mark christopher valentine

4/13/2001