Accustomed to the Cross

For Friday, February 12, 2016...

A-Poem-a-Day

Until Resurrection Sunday

Photo credit: ngampleng.com

ACCUSTOMED TO THE CROSS

I’m accustomed to the Cross.

I’ve seen it since childhood

gleaming high atop steeples,

crucifixes behind altar rails,

on hospital walls,

on bedroom walls,

depicted in framed masterpieces,

depicted in sculpted masterpieces,

described in written masterpieces,

marking graves in cemeteries,

illustrated in holy books,

affixed to lapels,

hanging silver and golden

and studded with diamonds

and sapphires from the necks

of men, women, children—

hanging, hanging on my mind.

So accustomed, yet

sometimes it is everywhere

and I don’t see it at all.

Today I see it afresh

sturdy and wooden and terrifying

through Good Friday eyes

that send streams down my cheeks

as blood streams from His wounds.

I shudder,

mindful of the Man upon the beams

and the reason He is there—

Shudder

at the horror of it, Jesus my Lamb,

at the magnitude of it, Jesus my King,

at the love upon it, Jesus my Friend,

and my gratitude for it,

O Blessed Jesus,

my Lord and my Savior

Who suffered upon it

…for me.

Maude Carolan