The Tipping Point: a poem for Good Friday night.

 A meditation poem for Good Friday night:

The Tipping Point.

The tipping point 

is now reached 

at last.

The ancient scales 

of justice, 

long fixed,

creak stiffly and tilt

mercywards,

weighed anew,

re-balanced

by wooden thorns

and three iron nails,

stirred

by that last shattering cry

of consummation,

more of a breath 

than a shout

by then,

delivered into winds 

suddenly woven

from calvary's calm;

as though inspired by 

His exhalation to wake 

all who weep,

or sleep,

or wander,

now drawn to new ways,

all while rocks crack 

beneath 

the sacred strain

of holding Him who 

holds them in themselves,

and a once sure crowd 

feels the fear of sudden clarity too late, 

too late.

What of His fled followers?

Did they feel it too?

The sad shuddering 

of the earth's molten heart 

boiling and breaking 

in grief, 

those who hid themselves 

like Adam from an 

all seeing eye

of love, 

like children who,

thinking to 

conceal their faces,

close their own eyes.

Yes, these, 

who would soon return,

almost all,

and be gathered 

again

around 

she who was 

His parting gift,

who had first gifted Him 

with all He human had.

She the solid earth healing

his broken fisherman foundation

until solidity returns

thrice assured.

Now He seems to return

to rest

upon her lap,

but Soul journeys still 

in realms long lost to us

He routs rage 

and restores

right.

His light harrows Hell 

where revealed now

as Word,

and Lord,

and King,

He claims His dowry,

the seeming dead 

of all the ages,

freeing and raising

before being risen

Himself,

while His body,

salved,

shrouded,

and entombed

waits for wedding kiss

of resurrection

dawn.

(stained glass of the Passion from Ards Friary)