The Stilling Night

A poem of remembering - Maundy Thursday

The Stilling Night
A poem of remembering - Maundy Thursday

In early evening you shared your body and your blood.
What could we say?
You broke the common bread and shared the cup of wine.
We quietly ate and drank your sweet, blessed, holy life,
And then we sang a hymn and went out into that darkest hour,

It was the stilling night.

Gethsemane beneath those heavy trees and blackest light.
What could we say?
Amid your prayers and pleas, we fell escaping fast asleep,
Bleak hours passed in opaque still, so far adrift in empty time, 
We turned our anxious heads and heard your solitary cries,

The uttered hope and anguished litanies. 

Amid the angry tumult, jeering crowds and hate, we turned away.
What could we say?
For thirty silver pieces, now betrayed, forsaken and disowned,
And then we fled away and hid, cloaked, and lost in failing light,
You stood degraded, blood running down your thorn-crushed head,

In silent innocence to bear love’s violent reproach.

The weighty, terrible cross, we hung you there in shame to die.
What could we say?
We did not know. We did not see you were the Paschal Lamb.
You broke your consecrated bread and poured your sacred wine.
You bled your life away, and gave it all in love’s obedient sacrifice,

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

The grave of stone, sealed hard and cold, a tomb devoid of any life.
What could we say?
It was in utter still of death you lay, so ashen lifeless, shroud in gloom.
The guards in silent watch at that most bleak and friendless place,
Yes, we abandoned you to hell’s torment to bear our full eternal stain.

It was the stilling night.

22 April 2022