The Three Marys a Dirge Of Witness And Womb-Bound Sorrow Poem by Dave Dafes

Upon the road where dust and blood were wed,
Where mercy wept and righteousness lay led,
There walked not one—but three in sorrow bound,
Whose silent cries out-echoed every sound.

O Calv'ry's path! O stones that drank His pain!
Bear witness now to woman's grief untamed—
For though the Son bore wood and weight of sin,
His mother bore the deeper cross within.

The first was she whom angels once did greet,
Whose womb had made eternity complete—
Now bent in grief, her veil upon the ground,
To wipe the blood her trembling hands had found.

Each crimson trace that mark'd His faltering tread,
She gathered as though gathering the dead.
Not cloth, but soul, she laid upon the stain,
As if to drink and bear again His pain.

O Mary, Mother—bless'd yet torn apart,
The sword long prophesied now split thy heart.
For what is flesh when spirit shares the wound?
And what is time when grief is so attuned?

Beside her knelt the Magdalene undone,
Whose tears once wash'd the feet of Holy One.
Now floods return'd, no oil nor perfume sweet,
But bitter rain upon those sacred feet.

Her voice, once freed from demons' choking chain,
Now broke anew in lamentation's strain.
"O Rabbi! Lord! "—yet none could stay the tide,
As love beheld its very source denied.

The third—Bethany's gentle, faithful soul,
Who sat and drank when others sought control—
Now rose not calm, nor listen'd at His word,
But beat her breast where grief like thunder stirr'd.

She saw Him fall—O sight too vast to bear!
The One who spoke all life now gasping air.
The weight of wood, yet heavier still the cost—
The world redeem'd, yet heaven seeming lost.

And lo! He sank beneath that cursed tree,
The ground itself did tremble in decree.
His strength gave way, His body bent and torn—
And all three hearts were crush'd that fateful morn.

Then rose a cry—not Rome's, nor rabble's shout,
But from a mother's soul that bursteth out:
"O help Him! Stay! Will none His burden take? "
And heaven paused—for love's own voice did quake.

A stranger then, from Cyrene's distant land,
Felt sorrow pierce and guide his trembling hand.
He took the beam—not knowing sacred role,
Yet felt the weight of more than wood or soul.

Around them roared the chaos of the street—
The jeering mouths, the trampling of His feet.
Some laugh'd, some wept, some turn'd their eyes away,
While angels veil'd their gaze from mortal play.

The soldiers bark'd, the whips did crack the air,
Yet none could match the grief assembled there—
For though they struck the Shepherd to the ground,
It was the lambs who felt the deeper wound.

The three stood bound—not by decree nor chain,
But by a love that would not break in pain.
Three witnesses to heaven's darkest hour,
Three vessels crush'd beneath redemption's power.

O daughters all who walk where sorrow leads,
Behold in them the cost of love's true deeds:
For not alone did Christ the burden bear—
Three Marys bled… though none the wounds did wear.

And still the earth remembers where they trod,
Those women who walk'd the road… and wept with God.