Six days ago he said he would be crucified.
We said “Impossible.” Our sense of decency
insisted. It was unthinkable.
Now it is August 6th, an ordinary day.
8:15 a.m. Children are walking to school
along the Ota River, past the Genbaku Dome.
The sound of a plane, high up, hardly noticed.
Then a burst of light. Brilliant light.
The mountaintop of our science.
He seems to be talking with the long dead.
He has already drowned and come up,
passed through the light into the light.
No darkness now can overcome him.
Infinitely present, burnt offering, the least of these.
His shadow is scorched into the wall behind him.
Cross and garden, in a flash.
Luminous presence in the firebomb of our sin.
Irradiated by passion to be there in our worst.
All revealed, beyond seeing.
He is pure light. You can see through him.
Then you can’t see. A cloud fills everything.
We have explanations. But the horror is not shaken.
“This is my child, my Beloved. Pay attention.”
Then nothing. Just him. And ashes.
Still he shines through our cruelty,
transfigured amid our evil, still shining.
Slow to learn, we will repeat this in Nagasaki.
After, he blesses our stunned silence. No words.
Only after dying and rising may we speak,
and then not of glory, but the presence.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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