Friday of Light

April 10, 2009. Good Friday. For at least a decade it has been my custom during the great three hours to take a long walk, regardless of the weather, through the park along the Cocheco River that is called "Hanson Pines." It's a time to read Morning Prayer, to meditate on the Passion, and usually to write poetry. This year it was a bright, sunny, and warm day.
.
Friday of Light
.
By the waters of Cocheco,
by the cold, dark waters beneath the sun,
in the tall trees of the old wood,
where the young walk and the old dream,
in the long shadow of a day gone by,
a day when brightness turned to dark,
and in that darkness came the Light;
and hopelessness that seemed to reign
was, in the seeming triumph of a cruel death,
overcome, defeated, and replaced by hope;
for, in the dying of the One in whom was life,
the dying that appeared to bring the darkness,
came the kindling of the everlasting Light,
that lumined all the darkest depths of hell,
and shone into the corners of my sinning heart;
and here, by Cocheco's dark and frigid waters,
old and worn and knowing well my faults, I sit,
and think upon the shadow of that Cross,
meditating
on my sins that brought Him to that place,
and on His love,
the love that I could never claim to earn,
the love that comes by His own will,
the love that brought His Light to shine in darkness.
So, by the waters of Cocheco,
here I sit and smile through flowing tears of joy.

----------------------------------------ed pacht