Religious Poem: Emmaus

Odd one this, I stumbled onto the poems of Archbishop Rowen Williams.
His poem’s here http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/831


Mine’s below:


Emmaus Road

Can I come with you then, the stranger said
Rudely interrupting Luke and I
About our business on the road
The ashen news still in our mouths
That Romans, Sadducees or God knows who
Had stolen His broken body from the tomb,
Had desecrated even that repose,
Of He who had been worth the whole vile lot
Of all the money grubbing parasites.
I turned to give him a piece of my mind
Carry a sword, He’d said, and if I’d had one then
Close to my hand, who knows what might have been.
This burly yokel skewered, at least.
But then, my heart was never in the fight.
And much as He’d implied it, it had failed
Or else been transformed into another thing
As death transformed Him into stolen goods.
And I could not bear,
To break my staff upon this hapless man,
Who had done nothing, neither bad nor good,
Neither called for His death, nor nailed a cross,
Neither followed His path, nor praised His name,
But had been somewhere else, and did not know,
What might have been, and had forever failed.
Those three days in Jerusalem.
Come with us to Emmaus, sir, I said.
We’ll speak more there, over the wine and bread.



Simon Bucher-Jones