Maundy Thursday
A Poem by Caitlin Gilson, Ph.D.
My Lord, I am bathed in blood and sin
As sweetness of song transports age and neglect
Into undelivered ages upon age
Neglect me and do what you will
Ignore every half-spent, misspent thought of mine until I am yours
My Lord I am bathed in your blood and my sin
It soaks my clothes and my hair, chills and tires me, confuses my tears, rocks me in the cradle, in the heavy down
Lowered into mothering arm held firm in the torrent of sun
Wraps me as the panting deer from the buckshot
Lowered, burst lung, bleeding out
Amid the mud and dung
Muddled and more to soak the ground
So much more reflected on the pavement, on the gravel and stone
Dried on the tongue in the finality to come
Lay down, helpless movement, bereft in un-reflected remorse
Is this it? Is this it, my Lord?
Neck to its side, unresistant as it is broken once more
One more composition redesigned to do your will
Slice my throat
Break my neck
Take your time in mine, hand on chest, ravaged and conquered
Presses and presses of thorns into my eyes
My Love of unacknowledged compassion
My Love of roses overflown
I am without recourse soaked in all blood and sin
Sinless drops of blood anoint the places on my face and chest
Resting on your earth, drowsy and small
The birds round the bay tide and far away hills have come bid me sleep
These vacancies of my fatted heart pull down into singular beats
I tire of your love
Forgive me
I tire of good things
One beat less resistant than the next, each drawn into your languishing misery
You have come before and after me, and through me, beside and below me
You remain in all my nothing of nothing words jumbled and confused
Is this it? Is this it, my Lord?
I conspire in your love
Forgive me
Relieve me
Break me and dip the bread into your blood
My neck is at its side, unresistant and in your care
I place my head upon your earth
Your chest seeps threefold
Your flesh grants space in threes
Your body weeps into me the great night which awaits all unfinished things
Who is it that has come to caress every little hold over hope and walled up innocence behind the wooden door
tucked into its frame
welded into its master lock and key?
The long dressing gown that trails and weaves a thread of clay amid the upturned moonlit earth is soft to touch and weighted with centuries of threefold weeping
My Lord I am clothed in your blood and all sin
The never before and never more undress me in their embrace
Chasing me in their encasement
Hunting me as prey already wounded and bloodied
My scent for the hounds
Pulling my heart down into a single echo, one chamber wall to the next
Volume and percussion
Every ounce of my blood
You take so little of me my Lord
Why do you take so little of me, my lamb of all lambs?
Break me and dip the bread into your blood
In the valley of misunderstanding
I lay betwixt the stars and the past, wondering at last, wondering
Is this it? Is this it, my Lord?
Caitlin Gilson is a philosophy professor at the University of Holy Cross. Her several books include the poetry collection Tregenna Hill: Altars and Allegories.
