We Dare to Call This Friday Good

T. S. Eliot wrote about this day:

The dripping blood our only drink,

The bloody flesh our only food:

In spite of which we like to think

That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood –

Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

A body . . . . . never treated so lovingly in life . . . save in a mother’s arms . . . 

A body alive subjected to torture and such contempt . . . 

gently, even delicately taken down . . .  

A body gentled in death

That was so cruelly treated in life.

A man . . . . . feared to be known in life . . . shunned . . . met only in secret . . . 

Openly, even proudly claimed in death.

A life of poverty

A death of extravagence . . .

 new tomb . . . 

Lavish, excessive burial spices . . . 

How anxious they were . . . we are . . . I am . . . 

to do . . . something 

when there is nothing to be done

There is a time to weep and a time to laugh

a time to mourn and a time to dance

Temptation is ever before us 

to duck the choice

Busy . . . busy we must be . . . 

busy with the business, the busy-ness

of tending dead

He is past caring

but we cannot care . . . we do not dare –

grief large enough to split the earth in two

is too large for this human vessel

But busy . . . that I can do . . . 

I can be

busy getting the tomb 

the best – only the best will do

Busy tending to the body

busy is not too big for me

And there is no room for grief in this

busy-ness of the business of death

The grief, you see, is just too big for me

So on with the busy-ness of the business of it all . . . 

Busyness of thought and mind 

even when the body dares cry out for rest . . . 

Even then I am busy . . . busy remembering . . . a day

was it only yesterday?

A meal with friends . . . 

conversation laden with meaning . . . 

The matzah . . . my body, he said . . . 

Broken

Wine

like blood

poured out

He said

Symbols within symbols 

confusions

time not yet passed

events not yet happened

Remembering

and trying to make sense

of the senseless

But if understanding . . . then what?

No grief?

No grief!  It is too big for me!

Groping for words . . . 

I rest in the poets and greater beings

and

I grieve

It is too big for me . . . this grief

But it must be done

And so . . . sigh and surrender . . . 

It is a time to mourn . . . 

The tomb will wait

Sabbath is coming

Poets be damned!

I am not the child of a lesser god!

My God is as big as the pain in my heart

and it . . . is . . . endless . . . 

And so, Mr. Eliot, yes, thank you very much, 

we do dare call this Friday Good.

And so it is

not ice cream and cotton candy good

not falling in love for the first time good

not last-minute governor’s reprieve and presidential pardon good

but suffering fit to the occasion good

12 step bull shit but true feel-the-feeling, 

knowing I won’t die from the pain good

clinging to a whispered half-heard hardly understood promise good

Good-day-for-a-funeral good

Yes, Mr. Eliot, when friends die

it is right . . .

no . . . 

It is good . . . to cry