10 The Wounded King

I stood where shadows bend
The road, where rumor ran like
Winter rain.
The healer's name was in the wind
Yet still
I whispered for his pain.
I'd seen his hands restore the blind, watch crippled limbs remember
Grace, yet something hard inside
My chest still begged
To see his broken face
I heard him speak beside the shore, words that stirred the sleeping sand.
5,000 fed by broken bread
That multiplied
In open hand, but envy
Whispers loud and thin, and crowds grow cruel and stirred to roar
So, when they shouted
For his death, my voice was
Lifted with the war
I watched him stand before the judge
Before the roman
Marble throne.
Pilate washed his
Trembling hands while truth was left to stand alone.
The thorns were pressed
Against his brow, the lash fell short
Across his back, and every cry
The soldiers gave was thunder
On the mercy track
I saw him stumble through the dust
Beneath the [and singing] weight
Of splintered wood.
And still he looked
Upon the crowd as if he loved us
Where we stood and
I could hear the hammer
Fall, feel the trembling
In the hill
See the sky grow dark at noon
While time itself grew cold and still
Oh, the king above the storm
Why would you bleed for souls
Like mine?
The earth was shaking
Underfoot as mercy rewrote every line
The thief beside him gasped for breath
And begged for grace before the end.
The soldier muttered through the dark, "Surely this was heaven's
Friend." The temple veil began to tear
The stones beneath our feet would cry
And something fierce inside my
Bones awoke beneath that broken sky
I heard him whisper through the wind forgiving
Voices filled with hate.
And suddenly
The world
I knew lay shattered at
The mercy gate.
What kind of love would
Bear such shame?
What kind of king would choose the grave?
What kind of
God would take the nails to and singing] buy the very souls
He gave
Remember and singing] me, oh
Bleeding king, when mercy floods the final shore.
Remember me who called your
Death and knew not what
I asked it for
Let not my voice be lost to dust
Where guilt and grief and terror roam
Oh lamb who bore the weight of wrath
Please call this wandering sinner home
Forgive the hands and singing
That threw the stone.
Forgive the heart
That loved the night.
For now
I see
And singing] within your wounds
The dawn that conquers endless night