Bell

Christian Century, March 22, 2005 by Jeanne Murray Walker

Bell
Good Friday, 2004

   Since time flies one way like an arrow,
   the sugar can't be stirred out of your oatmeal
   and no matter how long the murderer sobs
   on the median strip--sorry!--he can't reverse
   his swerve, cannot rescind his drink

   before the crash. Like him, was Jesus heartsick
   to find history's not a zipper running both ways?
   He who loved eternity--its roominess,
   its reversibility--as he grew up, did he
   have to learn he never could unsay a thing

   he'd said? And yet today, like all Good Fridays,
   He hangs on the cross again. On altars
   he hangs. On necklaces. His death is like an x
   that rides the wheels of time to come again
   in ritual, that miniature eternity, that spring

   re-sprung. Dear God, there in your big eternity,
   remember that your hands and feet can never
   be unscarred again. Hear these words spoken
   by a body that suffers, by a tongue
   that will stiffen soon and be gone.

   Have mercy on us who love time.
   May this prayer be a tire
   that rolls over every inch of the way
   to find You. May it be a bell
   which can never be unrung.