November Passion

Christ dies on the roadside briars
And his blood is spattered on countless hips and haws.
His heart’s blood hangs in droplets on the guelder rose.
Scourge him and rip at him with bramble stems
And bind the clinging ivy round.
Set a crown of blackthorn savage on his head
And pierce him with blackened shattered spars
Felled in the storm.
The crows are watching mocking
Nodding their heads: ‘Let him save himself-
This spring God, riven now, strung up against the sky
Is all? Come down! let him halt
The season’s fall!’

And so he dies.
Descends
Harrowing the sod and clod
Dead and undead buried in the mould.
His life thrust into black earth
Forcing through the Sheol of hidden seed,
Through root and bulb, mycelium and spore.

Give him to me -
I will make a shroud of thistledown and old man’s beard
And cover his face with spiders’ silk.
For his tomb I will find a fallen beech
Hollowed in years. There deep in drifted leaves
Shall he lie out his quiet Sabbath rest.
While we locked in our rooms for fear
And curtains drawn against the dark
Weep for Adonis dead.

The robin is singing alone in the winter wood.
In silence under northern stars
The earth waits.