#100 The Cistern (Paul Mariani)

 Día número 100 del año. Domingo de Ramos, de la Pasión, comienzo de la Semana Santa, nuestros High Holy Days.

Hoy es el día que leemos el relato completo de la Pasión. La Semana Santa está llena para mí de recuerdos de mi infancia, misas repletas, procesiones largas, el evangelio de hoy leído a varias voces: el Sacerdote, Cristo; algún diácono, el narrador; algún otro lector designado, las otras voces; toda la congregación, cada uno de nosotros, los gritos del populacho: "¡Crucifícalo! ¡Crucifícalo!" Siempre me impresionaba—pero cuantas veces lo hemos dicho a escondidas.

Que sea pues una Semana de Gracia. 

Intentaré que los poemas para esta semana sean los apropiados para adentrarnos al misterio. 

THE CISTERN 

In the limestone cistern

beneath St. Peter Gallicantu

in Jerusalem, my back against

the wall, try as I might,

I could not keep from weeping.

I am a man gone down into the pit,

we listened to Fr. Doyle reading,

a man shorn of his strength,

one more among the dead,

among those You have forgotten.

And did he call upon the psalms

to warm him in his need?

The night before he died

they dragged him here to try him.

What answers he could give

lay shattered on the pavement.

Later his quizzers grew tired

and impatient. Let others try him

in the morning. Enough for now

to knot a rope across his chest

and drop him into darkness.

Hanging by his wrists, Eli

he would cry out, Eli, and again

they would misread him, thinking

he was calling on Elijah.

As each of us will be alone, 

friends scattered to the winds.

Except for one out in the courtyard

growing cold, poised now to deny him.

Darkness, the psalmist ended.

The one companion left me.