Raymond Garlick
passion 72
'They arrested him
and led him away.'
How often have I
heard newscasters say
in the past twelve-month
the same momentous
words of Luke. The police
are always with us,
Roman, Dyfed-Powys,
and the Passion
unfolds before us
in unchanging fashion.
The unjust trial scene
endlessly recurs:
Socrates bears his,
Portia stages hers.
It moves to Moscow,
Ulster; now to Wales -
at Mold and Swansea
the thorns and nails.
By sweating judges
and magistrates, mazed
by sacred Caesar,
the crosses are raised.
For Pilate abides
too, bewigged or bald,
in pink, or pin-stripe
suit today, and called
my lord, your worship.
A peppercorn still
on the judgment seat,
he's ground in the mill
of the police, the scribe
and the pharisee,
washes his hands of
justice, goes to tea.
What can it be like,
though, to draw their breath,
grow towards old age
and sentence of death
with such a conscience?
To brood on the fact
that Pilate's name
and his unjust act
endure to this day?
To know their wages
the execration
of the ages?
Page(s) 30-31
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- North, The
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- Poetry London (1951)
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