I bemoan the fact that if, as often said, poetry is the “stepchild of the arts,” then Christian poetry is the stepchild most readers would like to disown. I don't blame them. But I still write poetry.
Joseph and Nicodemus
(John 19:38-39)
What a disheveled heap
This bled-out bone bag makes
Crusted with spit and sweat
Entrusted with threats to the two of us
The workman’s wiry muscles, now slack
Are pitiful as they break through the flayed skin
But the blood – it is all gone, tired of flowing
Clotted and forgotten at the dirt footer of
The flogging pole
And of course
That cross
We avert from each other
But we cannot stop our own tears
Squeezed out between our eyelids
That should shield us from what we see here:
The candlewax pallor
The shamed nakedness we wash and cover first
To give the modesty the audience denied
Our towels dipped in the pots
We lugged down the stairs
The water pinks now
In the lamplight
Part by part
Limb by limb
We dampen and rub away
All the vestiges on
The shell of a delivered-over spirit
One of the winding cloths rolls below the ledges
We reel it in and wrap his arms
From the swaddles on our grizzled forearms
We have grown wrinkles under our tears
The weight is almost beyond our old-men strength
We heft and lean
Balance and wrap
The acrid spices
The confined space
Bring more tears
More tears
We find we do not need
The water any more
–copyright, Latayne C. Scott
If you'd like to be entered in a random drawing for a new 2010 Christian Writers' Market Guide, including CD (Tyndale, 2010)
just enter your name and email address in a comment section below. (Since the drawing will be random, no response to the poem is necessary.)
