By Richard Mather
It is dark. And cold. Now I shiver.
But I am calm. And now it has begun.
Despite the waiting. I am past caring. It is beyond me.
To be spat on and hit at.
I shall be glad when it’s over. I am calm. I am nervous.
And thirsty. I won’t sleep tonight. Perhaps I will.
If I do I won’t know until I wake up. But this is trivial.
It is dark. A hiatus. But life is full of breaks.
Can’t move my feet. Ankles bound together.
An odd smell in here. Urine, I think. Not me. Not yet.
They don’t care. They want you to stink.
Humiliation. They want you on your knees.
Craving clean water.
In the desert. I remember. After Yohanan and his thin nakedness.
I spent the fourth week stumbling and crawling
over the rocks, panting. I remember. Weird dreams
of angels with a hundred eyes
walking on liquid glass.
And inside every dream, a figure.
Each time a different face, a different height.
Man or woman? I followed that voice
until we came to a white light atop the temple
and the city was bathed in a new colour.
Then a fantastic panorama of kingdoms and estates and cities.
Now I am here. In a dark place. And a bad smell.
Not like the flowers.
Or the spices.
Or the perfume she put in my hair.
I remember. All those olive branches swaying in the moonlight.
Reminds me. What was it? He cometh forth like a flower.
And is cut down. Few days and full of trouble. Such is man.
Substance and negation. The way of all things.
Still I go on. No permanence of bone. Or stone.
A brave face.
A brave face hides a multitude of faces.
They can discern the face of the sky but they can’t.
To be handed over to sinners. A matter of time.
Sick. Tastes bitter. Cough it up. Let it go. It has not passed. It is coming.
A sad end. It is His will but it is
on my shoulders. All of it. I carry it all.
Breathe. Too late to panic. Head hot. Feverish. But cold.
To save and not be saved. Let it go.
And the word is spoken to the ears of women and men and asses and babies
and goats and flies and sparrows and trees and stones. All listening.
From root to tip.
Simple Simon. Doubting Thomas. Peter the Rock.
More names, adding names to my names.
My name the end of a long list of names.
X begat Y, Y begat Z.
I begat I.
We all become one name.
That is perfection.
In time, when the camp followers drift away
and the skies are full of thunderous wings, then I
will come with a swift scroll and proceed to strike
with a rod of fire and the apostates shall…
Footsteps. Loud and hard.
I am coming undone. The great unravelling.
Father, the hour is come.
I have done your work. The eagle will strive
and the lowly sparrow will fall, but I will come
with a pair of wings in the night, crying, crying.
They are coming to take me.
Isn’t this enough? Reeling, dizzying.
A stem of vomit in the throat.
Nearly over.
It will be a relief.
Such relief.
Let them come.
Let them.
Let
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