STIGMATA

You swear at your neighbour and threaten to maim him
because he fails to see your point of view.
You're filled with anger,
                                       intolerance,
                                                          hatred.
Let him stand up for himself - if he dare:
He'll be sorry if he does,
                                       because you'll kill him..
Politeness,
                 charity,
                             kindness:
                                            they're alien.
Inside you, rage burns,
                                    spite devours.
Somebody else's face
                                  drawing your fist,
and your face,
                       like a death mask,
is menacingly calm above all this seething
with savage compulsion to destroy.
He mumbles something
                                      unintelligible.
You throw a punch.
                                The agony...
as unseen knife shoots clean through your hand.
You raise the other
                               in self defence,
                                                       and that's pierced too.
A six inch
                nail
                      out of thin air
                                            through the palm.
Now barbed wire tears: feel
the blood running down your cheeks
as you stumble through a thorn bush.
Is that broken glass
                               you just stepped on,
embedded there in the soft earth?
Sad, celestial music
                               playing in your head.
There is blood
                       oozing into your footprints.
And lilies:
the overpowering scent of lilies
                                                  permeating the very air around you.
JESUS -
you feel your heart breaking: yes - you,
feeling...
emotion,
              compassion:
oh, the excruciating agony
of everything
                 ever experienced
                                            since the dawn of humanity
becoming personal.
You,
        who have never set foot
                                              inside a church,
desperately needing one...



In calm reverence
you kneel before his effigy
                                           on the Cross,
feeling the blood
                          drip,
                                 drip
from His sacred wounds.
And now,
               finally,
you begin to understand.