Longinus

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Why was I reluctant?

I can only say it seemed so unnecessary.

I had been there for the whole ordeal.

We had already fulfilled the demands of hate,

Filled full, over flowed, spilled

The full measure of hate; killed Him.

Beat, flailed, threshed like grain of wheat,

Fresh flayed like meat, thorn-torn crownéd brow.

How brave He stood! How so silent?

Burdened, urged and cursed,

Tripped and whipped like a donkey,

Pushed, bullied and dragged;

Robe gripped and stripped, wounds ripped anew open;

Hung now-fresh bleeding flesh from stake

Nailed, travailed...

and now to be impaled?

Stuck like a pig with my lance?

Not a chance He is alive.

No breath detected,

No life suspected,

Elected to make sure, but

Need I? He is dead. Let Him be.

Behold the corpse!

Poor parched, dried out, bled out

Pale blue livid skin under red and black

Of wound and scab and muck.

I know the look of death!

Why have I not struck?

I had never paused before, human flesh is cheap

Insubordination steep. Why weep now?

Strange reluctance, ineluctable task

Final degradation, penetrating stab of hate.

“Give it to cold, old half-blind Longinus. Let him take care of it.”

So it must be, let pity die.

Hate welled up, swelled up, fell,

Black as coal, a hole of cold nothing in my soul,

Killed my pity.

I looked,

I hated,

I thrust.

Felt thunk of iron on blood soaked trunk

Of tree behind,

Even blind I,

Know to twist with wrist and rip

Free.

It is finished.

And in the act, the very act of pulling free:

Rushing counter-thrust of grace!

Riposte’ of Mercy burst unburdened out,

Frothed forth! Rushed eagerly, joyfully gushed,

Flushed my bat-blind eyes, and thrust me to my knees.

Defeated utterly!

Mercy filled my eyes (that looked on slaughter,

And red-rimmed laughed) with blood and water,

Filled them with tears, and washed those tears away.

Washed away the dry, grimy film

Through which I viewed the world,

All my life.

Of sinners worst, most accursed, who durst

Kill and mutilate mercy itself, I was the first!

First immersed in Mercy

Bursting forth to quench my thirst.

Not according to desert, but to my need

In heaping measure what I, unknowing, took,

He blithely gave for me who made Him bleed.