ONE FRIDAY

One Friday was filled with blood.

Skin torn beneath the weight of a hammer, pierced by nails,

adorned with a crown of twisted thorns.

But only love flowed out of those wounded hands.

Only love dripped down that innocent face.

Only love rushed up to cover the nails embedded in his feet.

One Friday was filled with hatred.

Mocking voices raised in defiance, like spears pointed at the sky,

shaken in the fists of men who look just like me.

But only the voice of mercy echoed in reply.

Only mercy spoke their names from lips drenched with compassion.

Only mercy answered them to pardon their naked sins.

One Friday was filled with darkness.

The sun refused to shine. Light itself expired

and hung in the air, motionless.

Even God turned his face away in shame,

as every shadow on earth swelled in to fill the empty space

and wrapped the human heart in a shroud of death.

Angels fell to the ground in disbelief, children wept in the streets, a mother’s heart

was pierced through with sorrow deeper than any ocean.

One Friday was filled with dread, as hope took one last breath,

to dive beneath the surface, descending deeper into that secret place

where darkest darkness wraps itself in a blanket of fear and death and disease.

He swam deeper, his lungs filled with fire, down where blindness thrives, into the face of horror,

towards the darkest terrors as yet unknown to mortal men,

until his fingers found the keys of hell,

and ripped them from the wretched grasp of that cowardly worm.

Turning then beneath those depths, he set his face toward the sky,

raised his arms above his head,

and he began to rise.

By Keith Giles