Good Friday, April 9, 1993
Christ went to a certain place
to pray,
says Luke, who wasn't there
when the Lord's prayer
spoke itself in shivers
of intention.
I read it this way: that Christ was certain,
possessing a calm certitude
that bread would be
delivered daily, and broken,
and that names would be held holy
on the tongue,
spoken only at moments of
passion and passage.
How certain, I wonder, did the
cross feel, rough cut, slivered
and notched as he humped it
to a certain place
that held no secret, only
humiliation and public hanging,
shouting his abandonment
to the lowland traffic?
In his doubt I find
my certainty.
I sense, finally,
a biography.
by Paul Totah