The Taking Of The Christ Poem by Kevin Rice

On my dark canvas
A bleak story lies
That speaks of foul deceit
Engulfed in shadows,
On this unholy night
In the garden of tears

My lantern draws away
The shroud of darkness
Its light unveils the treachery at hand
And I, Michelangelo Merisi,
Am he who stands
Apart in time
My lantern and my hand
Give to the world
The imprint of the crime
That shook our history

I witness now,
In his despairing flight,
John the Evangelist
Here is revealed
The armoured soldiery
Who lay their hands upon the Prince of Peace
And, with them, the betrayer,
Armed only with a kiss

His false embrace
Is but a mockery
A gauntlet seeks the throat of Christ unarmed
Yet mighty in assent
The hands that healed,
That raised the dead
Lie low in resignation and in peace

My brush and pigments
Illuminate events
Which transcend time
As, in the flickering glare,
A hesitant spectator, I behold
The taking of the Christ