Saturday, April 3, 2010

The Great Switcharoo


The Great Switcharoo


You trudged that lonely hill to find
A foresworn play of cacophonic Grace
In all that noise, the lonely Mind
And ailing curses in their place

Of love were You born, and loved to death
Were sent for stricken, choked off breath
Sweat provoking the smaller flies
That flew and spat and smote Your cries

In foreward angle, foreordained
A backward glance at broken lanes
(in gardens of old, now guarded by flames)
Outside it all You once stood regal
Inside You folded down with beetles

And smaller things, like reverent rust
Found despair's asthmatic trust
Was broken for my sake, and bent
Grave-bound and sold for an earthquaked Lent

Their acid burn of condescension
Did we forget You commanded legions?
A fleet to guard the human race
At Your small word to slash in haste

Or remember when You giant-sang?
And stones slayed monolithic slang?
Always the fool to silence the wise
Always the quieter Babylon demise

But there on crooked creaking beams
That still grow strong from ancient seeds
You, raised to look out, halfway-dead
On the many-haired and numbered heads

Found ashes to Your enveloping beauty
My harlotry known from Advent's ready
We were meant to stand there small, below
And catch from You fresh crimson flow.

The old song meeting on intersection
The new cup of promised resurrection
And on folded knees at the foot of that Moat
We were built to hope for that only Hope.


-Jillian Rose