Holy Friday, a poem

In Harrowing of Hades, fresco in the parecclesion of the Chora Church, Istanbul, c. 1315,
raising Adam and Eve is depicted as part of the Resurrection icon, as it always is in the East.
© José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / , via Wikimedia Commons

Holy Friday

After he gave up his spirit, the dogwood grieved

that it was strong and straight and heavy,

chopped down and crudely made to be

the tall cross he dragged up Golgotha Hill.

He blessed the tree that was only fulfilling the scriptures,

that had no will and yet could feel,

and shriveled and shrank crookedly in shame.

He blessed the tree and suddenly

            the dogwoods all over the Earth

            bloomed white or pink, luminous

in twilight, a little thornless crown at the center

and four fleshy petals for the points of the cross.

And a robin landed on one branch

to announce the spring,

and a mockingbird landed on another

to repeat the good news,

and an owl landed on another to wisely chant

                        a lament for the dead.

Then the ground trembled and opened,

            the archangels flew out of the immense

waning red Passover moon,

and flanked him as he descended into the underworld.

And the sage and thyme and rosemary

            growing close to the ground

            released their fragrance as they were trampled

            by him who would trample death,

who pushed aside the granite stone covering the tombs

            and took Eve and Adam by the hand

            and pulled them bodily from their graves.

The first mother and father shouted out to be risen,

            on their feet, held in each other’s arms,

touching heart to heart, and testing

the muscles in their fingers.

            The owl was heard solemnly chanting praise;

the mockingbird repeating the good news;

the robin announcing the spring.

Yet he would not be interrupted, the cattle and sheep,

winemakers and bakers, farmers and shepherds,

and the loyal dogs leaning against them,

the weavers and the barefoot children died too soon,

and women exhausted with birth

found themselves upright, standing witness

as all the souls were good

after their original nature.

Even the warrior kings and even the rich,

killers whose gold starved the rest,

he allowed into the cloud,

let them be poor and naked and sick,

let them hold a dogwood branch as a scepter.

--Aliki Barnstone, the poem originally appeared in Great River Review, and will appear in her forthcoming book, Dwelling, the Sheep Meadow Press, 2016.

NOTE: The poem refers to the Legend of the Dogwood and to the icons of the “Harrowing of Hell,” in which Jesus is depicted raising Adam and Eve from their tombs.