Oh I love Texas!!! I live in Texas! :)
This morning, I am out of rhymes, but I wrote this instead:
It was no clean thing, this,
no easy walk into that dark night
filled with memorable soundbites
and photo op moments,
soldiers in their dress uniforms
and dignitaries in their solemn regalia.
No clean thing, this,
filled with the sweat of pain
and the taste of blood,
the dust of the road,
the tears of grief,
the reality of betrayal,
the weight of sin.
No calm thing, this,
filled instead with noise:
the noise of mockery, bitter and undeserved,
punctuated with spittle and blows.
the noise of pain:
the slap of the flagellum against bare skin,
the sound of hammers driving spikes into wood
through human flesh,
cries ripped unbidden from the depths of the gut,
as flesh protested the hot sudden agony
that would not go away.
The noise of expediency: "Crucify him yourselves."
No easy walk this,
rushed through the crowded streets
beneath a crushing weight,
stripped of everything that matters most to man,
standing naked in the light of day
bruised and bloody and battered,
with nothing left to give
except the acceptance of pain,
except the final acts of love,
surrender
death.
In the Concrete Confessional
He kneels on the little room’s hard stone floor,
clasps his hands tightly and bows his weary head,
whispering soft the truest words he’s ever held within.
Only he and his maker know his last words,
and the weary heart from which they came,
and the depth and width of a lost soul in pain.
He confesses his transgressions and more,
feeling the bite, the bitterness of what he’s said,
the too long list of his life long toll of sin.
Knowing the futility of hope, grace unheard,
and setting the record straight in His name,
he now waits to see if he’ll transcend his mortal stain.