The First Good Friday Poem by ENOCH JOHN

So there had been a trial of sorts, more of a farce,
So much so that Pilate hypocritically washed his hands,
Meaning to free himself from the blood of this man,
But then Pilate had asked a very pertinent question of Jesus,
Regarding his kingship.This was important to the Roman governor,
And to his superiors in Rome and indeed to Jewry and the wider world.

The death sentence was imposed so that the journey up the hill began,
It might have been a day when an ochre sky hung lazily over Jerusalem,
And the weary stones in the streets remained cold and silent,
As the fate of humanity hung in the balance.
Peter that great apostle and many others were absent from the hill or stood afar off,
But then Jesus had already found it expedient to die for the world:
''Dulce et decorum est pro patrice mori.''

So this notable day was laden with phantasmagoria:
The long trek up Golgotha, the Messiah being nailed to a crude cross,
The taunts mixed with the jeers and the genuine sorrow of his followers,
His yielding up the ghost and His final utterances of anguish and forgiveness,
Climaxed by the earthquake and the renting of the veil in the temple.

So that on the Morning of Christ's Nativity became not just a Miltonic verse
That resonated through the hills of Judah,
But this first Good Friday painted the canvas of the sky sombre,
For it was like a supanova going out in a moment- -
The choreography of angels was gone, there were no shepherds as witnesses,
But then on Easter Sunday He arose from the dead proving who He is.