Remember that
crucifixion only became theology
with time. Once it was
just somebody’s job and
somebody else’s brutal
entertainment; some
avoided such spectacle as that
due to delicacy and others ran
like hell to avoid being the targets
of the ones with the hammers and
the nails. Remember that
it only became holy
with time; some say it took
as little as three days,
others say it’s still not all the way
there. Remember
that it was cleaned up and
that you’ll really never know
what it was really like; remember that
the next time you’re looking up at
the bare cross on the wall of your church.
Remember that there are some places in the world
where on Good Friday
some try to replicate it,
dragging crosses
through the dirt streets,
hanging themselves bloody
to bring it home again; remember
how you knew of them, the penitentes,
once upon a time and had forgotten them
till now? Remember how it sobered you
up to learn of them? To learn of people
who preferred to recall it was once
routine and mundane and bloody
and vile, and maybe it should have stayed
that way; if it one day makes you uneasy
in church, if it pulls you down to your knees
in sick wonder, maybe that’s what you get
for forgetting that it did not start
in purity and that they only capitalized it
once they made it into capital.
Daily Archives: January 9, 2018
Remembered
The Arts As A Profession
On the clock
for a whole day
with no rest.
There are people
who consider that
a hardship, an
inequity to be
redressed at some point
with a dramatic exit
and all the fireworks
they can muster.
I am not one of those —
I welcome this
round the clock job,
all week gig, all year
career. Any stoppage
or break feels like a death
or at best a sickness.
I did not sign up
for this life but I take it
as my reward for
something I did in
a previous one where
I was stunted and kept
from this. This is no
job, after all. This is
an identity; why would I want
to break that?
I turn back to it. Go
away. There’s work to be done
and I would prefer
to be alone, wearing myself
to a nub, as I do it.
Like most others
who are called to this,
I’ll rest when I’ve
died. I’ll take my break
on my back, or slumped in
a chair, better yet, head fallen
onto the desk. They’ll
pull me up and wheel me out
and someone else
will sit right down
and go, go, go
all hours until they fail.
It’s how it’s done. Once
you’re in you stay in
till you drop
right beside
your last word
and someone new steps up.