THE WAY OF THE CROSS

What heavier grief than watching your firstborn

dragged through charades of justice, wrung with pain

and weighed down with the cross on which he’ll hang,

limping to Golgotha? Your soul was torn

by every struggling step. You could do nothing

for him. And then—scarcely to be believed—

that African the Romans dragooned retrieved

the cross he’d dropped and bore it up like something

holy—alms to him who suffered, a grace

to you who suffered, too. And you found strength

to walk behind them down the terrible length

of road that led you to the killing place.

“Be it unto me according to your word.”

“And for your heart the piercing of a sword.”