Motherless Pieta
Published in
Apr 6, 2022
Behind the curtain
The cottonmouths speak
Sending their words through the air:
Sacrifice and self-laceration
(bloodless)
Lift the hands that hang down
And succor and suffer
- Then heaven waits.
He listens with prejudice and certainty
But his hands hang lowest
Of all the hanging hands.
“My hands will be lifted,” he says,
“as I lift others.
So move on — let me be.
I have work to do.”
And his low hands
Raise stones to his
Single-eyed altar.
Then he lays himself down
body draped over the altar stones
(a Motherless Pieta)
Self-sacrificed, savior to none
But heaven waits, they say.
@Scott R. Edgar, 2022
