Good Friday Remembered

Abstract

Good Friday Remembered Peter Venable (bio) Morning. Third hour.I stroll in the woods. Dogwoods bloomlike cauliflower chunks in leafy salad.I inhale damp earth with every step.A brook rafts pine-pollen downstream.A catbird pricks her nest with pine needles.You are skewered on a stinking cross. Noon. Sixth hour.Storms sweep across the continentand deluge North Carolina. Back porch screensare fluid and filmy. Sirens dopplerfrom Silas Creek Parkway. Steady raincould have drenched Your misery—black clouds only shrouded sun's heat,not bloodsucking flies or jeering gawkers. Afternoon. Ninth hour.Storms pass.Plants on porch sills perch as birdschorus from verdant boughs.Evergreens sag from water weight.Carpenter bees peek from holes under eaves.A Yucca's leaf tips pierce like a Roman spear. [End Page 132] Peter Venable Peter Venable has written free and metric, sacred and secular, serious and whimsical verse for many decades. He has been published in Ancient Paths, The Merton Seasonal, Prairie Messenger, Time of Singing, American Vendantist, The Anglican Theological Review, The Christian Century and The Penwood Review. He is a member of the Winston Salem Writers. petervenable.com. Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press