TENEBRAE
Three iron nails:
through the feet and traditionally
the hands, but in fact the wrists:
scourged, the back bleeds,
and thorned the head: thirst
torments the parched throat:
darkness fall; he dies.

In whose name many
bishops coldly have sent
other good men
to execution: and the sun hides,
ashamed, seeing it; year
after year he dies
on the same rood, recrucified.

Blow out the candles:
we have made an end
to truth, a darkness over
the whole earth: death
sits here, gloating;
and hope lies down,
sealed in a hewn rock.

-John Reeves