A Good Friday Love

I wonder what it would have been like
to walk by your side,
hear your voice with friends.
Then lose you so violently and suddenly.
Snatched away by fear - lack of love.

Did they feel this desolate in their souls,
those who followed you?
Longing to see you break the bread,
pray the prayers, lead the crowds.

Which turned violent hands upon you.
As if you never walked with them.
Healed their longing souls.

Is the sadness in losing you,
as deep as the longing
of a mother's heart?
We walk these ways
not connecting them.

Bystanders of a story long dead.
Yet the truth is we all walk
these silent long pathways
of loss.

Loss of touch, voice, scent
and longing to be able to
see the person again
as if we could breath enough
to conjure them up.

We are broken on the shore
of tears in longing to be reunited
with the love we knew.
That is the way of the Cross,
the way of sorrows.

Cut off from the jeering crowd,
in our own island of pain and tears,
as we watch our love be nailed and die.

Taken away as if we didn't love,
didn't care, didn't say good bye.
Tears run out in fountains
walking this way of sorrow.
Into the darkest night of our souls.

Copyright Annette Joseph 2013