Sacrifice Poem by Christine Natale

Always weeping, forever dying,
The sacrifice of love goes on.
It pours itself into the world
Becoming ground we walk upon.

Three days of death, the penance paid
The breathless wait before the tomb -
No life of hope can yet be seen
No promise in the voiceless gloom.

This emptiness, this hollow space
Belongs to us, forever bound
As witness to the death-in-life,
Until our ears pick up the sound

Of our own hearts, which beat inside
Our breasts, creating time anew;
The light within begins to breathe
And pulse and set afire the dew.

Cold stone splits, the heavens roar
Light defeats the human eye -
Pain is freed and changed to growth
Of knowing we shall never die.