Dendron Koinonias
Posted on 2004-10-18 at 08:03
Brought together in my mind under a tree---
the memories of a lifetime forgotten. To cross
from this world into another, floating on a river
or a flood of ancient imagery I feel a tear
form which drags its way down a sullen cheek
as I pray for an eased relief from the yoke of life.
And as the penultimate whisper of the breath of life
deserts my aged body I look up to the tree
upon which I lay, feeling my sunken cheek
with a brittle hand, I think of a cross
and a man like me, near dead, nails forcing a tear
into hands that flow blood as the Nicene river.
And like the Nicene or Jordan or Euphrates river
that blood poured over the horizon, out of our life,
leaving nothing but twelve small men and a tear.
And I ask, as I lay in the comforting shade of my tree,
Why couldn't he come down from that cross?
When they rend one, why offer the other cheek?
With thorns they strike the Son of Man on His cheek
while the ungodly cross a shallower part of this river
we call life. Easier? Yes. Yet He chose the cross?
We were made to live---not suffer through life,
hanging onto the broken branch of a Messianic tree,
staring up, watching science and the world tear
at the sinewy strands of our faith until that tear
widens to bring us crashing down, bruised cheek,
like Him. Yet some land under a Newtonian apple tree
in an easier orchard where, unlike now, the river
of man doesn't take them down difficult paths of life
and where no one expects them to bear that terrifying cross.
And yet, for my part, I bore the heavy cross
and thoughts of each separate, streaming tear
fill my mind. My pneuma, the very breath of my life,
exhales now in a drumming rhythm with the water on my cheek.
And I think. Now I know. All I ever needed was a river,
a tree,
and Christ whose blood, like a tear, was shed for my life.
My cheek now grows ever paler as my soul trails down the Nicene river.
Now I understand. He died in pain on a cross that I might die at ease under a tree.
-Tom Caudron
-Inspired by my faith