The Earthly Trinity

(Speeches are interior monologues spoken as asides

MARY

One voice, the crowd, greeting clamor, he comes.

So wan, what tormentous night must he have spent!

No instant have they suffered him to sleep,

nor crust eat since the spicéd garden cup

dawned abduction and betrayal.

JOHN

All eyes upon. What other man, if man he merely were,

could seem so much the nobler for appearing meek?

MARY

"John, I bring him bread. Shall we approach?"

JOHN

"Later, Mary, at the place, when the crowd is less."

Woman, she would feed the calf. . . .

Not crowd, but mob who dare to mock and jeer, the same

who slowed his ride to passion with hero’s palm quick it now,

while he who ordered sea calm, fig shrivel, submits,

not even deigning to pluck the thorns out of his hair.

MARY

How now? Strange pleasure for Cyrenean enlist,

to carry ruggéd cross to hill.

Kin to finer-grained mahogany and quince

once submissive to his skill in trade,

would that you be heavy and resist.

JOHN

Unassisting in his first travail,

I do not speed him on to worse.

The mourners reach for him. He speaks.

CHRIST

"Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me,

but for yourselves, your children.

Time arrives when all proclaim,

'Blesséd are the barren wombs that never bore,

the teats that never suckled.’

Or have you forgot the prophecy

of the Father’s wrathful will:

‘Fall on us mountains, cover us hills’?

If these things be done by men

while the tree is lush,

what evil comes when it is dry?"

MARY

Too little too that I but stand and --?

Wait, they strip his robe, will cast lots,

fiends have flogged his body raw,

neat issue of angelic visitation. Stop!

JOHN

Branch to branch, they strap his limbs

along the splintered vertebrae

of strangulating vine,

flatten fingers, right the spur,

and hammer home.

MARY

Stop, fiendish carpenters, you cleave my bone,

send phantom hurt and blood shrieking to the spot!

God, am I, once pure, said blesséd of my kind,

not worthy now to act as surrogate for my child?

Yes, immaculate conceived, but bearing-labor mine,

since Eve accursed, inured to earthly pain.

Take me instead.

CHRIST

"Forgive them, Father,

for they know not what they do."

MARY

Or if not God Himself, then minion,

haste you here again to help at least

daub his brow with cooling wind,

his nostril with replenished breath.

Angel never bidden, revisit widow former maid,

have with her the way of Lucifer,

though breeding aught but dry regret,

indeed, damnation,

if no less purchase his reprieve.

JOHN

Condemned, he comforts, wins the criminal.

CHRIST

"Truly I say,

you shall this very day

be with me in Paradise."

JOHN

Would I were that thief,

now my successor on his right,

to favored make the final journey.

I who followed longer

am left behind

to grieve and testify.

CHRIST

"Man, behold your mother.

Woman, behold your son."

JOHN

"Oh, Rabbi, friend!

What meager deed to ask

that was already done

but for address. . . . ‘Mother’."

MARY

"‘Brother of my son.’

Can tender nothing more,

as by affection I have but one."

JOHN

She would not have slept

at Gethsemane. . . .

What man am I who stand idle by?

The curséd fly has more effect

that ignores removing hand

to light on every wound in turn

and work his wings.

CHRIST

"I thirst."

MARY

At last, he bids, they run to minister.

But what toxin offered does he refuse,

whose greedy hunger drained my breast?

CHRIST

JOHN

Deaf, hear voice depart a blighted land.

MARY

I relinquish. Greater, answer him!

And forgive my blasphemy.

JOHN

See you rocks split,

Earth tremble at his cry?

CHRIST

"Into Your hand, Father,

I commend my spirit."

MARY

Lent reclaimed whence come.

CHRIST

"It is finished."

CENTURION

"Surely this man was the Son of God!"

JOHN

Ah! One at least with faith enough to trust his eyes!

How much greater theirs who might believe, unseen,

the many others later only told these things by me.

(DIRGE)

Dying, dead, his legs intact

kept by prophecy unbroken yet

side by soldier spear impaled

gushed water mixed with blood,

as virgin mother widow caught

a droplet’s spatter on her veil.

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