Good Friday

The coast now clear
The boy, barefoot by

A lone arum,

Sunk low as a snake

For fear of the guards,

For fear his father,

Should find him here.

But the best bits had passed:

Creak of flying wood

And hammer shot,

The blood spilled abroad-

None to the good.

A crowd drifted

For something better,

All that stood,

Was a line of three,

A soldier, bored

In the ebbing day,

And yonder the sound

Of women, weeping,

One knelt to pray 

Under a shattered man,

The same the Cyrene helped,

Along the way 

As he fell down

Beneath the wood.

'Home' his father said, 

He had dashed then, but instead

Circled to this cruel space. 

The Nazarene had caught his eye, 

Somewhere on the hopeless slog,

And brought him stumbling,

And fearful, yet curious,

To hide by a solitary bush

For whatever reason

At the killing place.