VII

        Luke 23:49..

With those eyes that probed           John 11.
the darkness of the bowels of the earth,
your friend, Lazarus of Bethany,
had come back from the tomb after
living in two different worlds. Seeing
you dead on the cross he wept,
remembering how you wept for him.
With her virginal eyes fixed on You,
your mother drank in your whiteness,
and all of your passion was poured
from your silent heart into hers
that was crucified with an infinite grief.
John contemplated your body with his
aquiline eyes, and beyond you he saw
the ageless sun and all the people,
the timeless guideposts of history. When
Thomas saw you lifeless, he hesitated
to believe his eyes, and with his hand
he tried to feel the whiteness of death
on your body. A disillusioned Peter
looked at the sad spectacle, and falling
from his eyes, a fountain of tears          Luke 22:62.
began to wash away the trail of blood
you left on Calvary. Nicodemus,          John 3:2.
a reluctant disciple by night,
contemplated your cross from afar,
feeling his heart beginning to beat
again in his breast. Mary Magdalene
could see only a single cloud through
the tears in her eyes: all was covered
with the darkness of night. James regarded
the city with anger and clenched his fist
with a frown. Stephen, a tender youth           Acts 6:15.
with an angelic face, carefully picked up
the pebbles with drops with drops
of your blood, like relics. And meanwhile,           Acts 8-9, 18; Galatians 4:13; 6:11; Thessalonians 2:19.
there in his Tarsus, on the edge of the Ionic
Sea, was Saul the Pharisee, his weak
eyes poring over the scrolls of Hellenic
wisdom with eager desire, striving
to be their Mercury among his people.
Still far away and lost in obscurity
the spirit of Athanasius was contemplating
the luminous darkness, and was seeing
the Creator’s creation, a patient action,
a finite infinity that would humanize God
so that we mortals could also be gods.
Falling from the sky over your forehead,
a drop of blood poured out of
the curved beak of a surfeited vulture
that came from the Caucasus, and your blood
mixed with that of Prometheus.