"CALVARY"

By Andrew Clarke.

A dialogue between God the Father and God the Son.

"Where are you going to, Beloved Son,
With your heart harshly troubled, my noble young one?"
"I must go to the world to bequeath hope and warning,
To tell fractured hearts a new era is dawning,
There's hope, healing and fire, vile sin and great ire,
And a fearful judgement to come!"

"I see you so lowly, Beloved Son,
That place your were born is a cow-shed, Pure One,
"I'll be no haughty prince in a palatial hall!
I'll be master by being the servant of all,
For the world's petty kings greatly prize earthly things.
But for them there's a sentence to come!"

"Now you hunger and thirst in the desert, My Son,
And the evil one brandished his riches, True One."
"He offered the things of the world, Holy Sire,
Such pelf as will pass and be flakes in the fire!
But the truth should turn all to treasures eternal,
And away from the judgement to come."

"You have told people truths that amazed them, My Son,
And been balm to the crying and hurting, True One!"
"I have healed the blind and twisted and lame;
But their masters on Earth have reviled My Name!
Those that seek to be lords are as brazen as bawds,
And for them retribution will come!'

"You stagger,in pain, You are bleeding, My Son!
Your back scourged, you head torn, your face battered, True One!"
Each limb is impaled on a bleak iron spike!
Your side cruelly gored by the point of a pike!
And "Forive them!" you cried, as You hung there and died!
You would spare them the fury to come!"

The sky has grown dark as a Heavenly Sign;
The body is broken, the Bread and the Wine.
By this mission of mine death itself is thrown down.
The blessed shall rise from the dust and the brine,
They shall rise from their graves, My blood sacrifice saves,
Caught up from the anguish to come.

"Where is that foul place You've descended, My Son?
full of fury and shrieking and hating, True One?"
"I've descended to Hell, to the grim Lake of Fire,
To the cavern of anguish and terrible ire,
It's deep and its dark, there's putrescence and death,
But I've beaten the judgement to come!"

"You pry open Death's talons, Immortalized Son,
And your tomb now lies open, My Chosen True One!"
"Since Hell could not hold me I fly to my throne,
To that realm of rejoicing I'll carry My own,
From all times, young and old, I shall bring them, My gold,
Through the awesome vengeance to come."

By Andrew Clarke. 1985.