When that disciple walked across Jerusalem,
just as the sky was pinkening in bright spring dawn,
we thought he must have been the very best of them---
better than those eleven that Jesus had drawn
to Himself. That disciple was a well-read man:
he knew the Laws of Moses and all prophecy
and he explained them better than most rabbis can---
the way he spoke of them sounded like Poetry.
Yet, at that hour, he somehow seemed---to us, at least---
almost despondent, even glum, and sorrowful:
not in a festive mood despite the Holy Feast;
as if something in him had shattered, no more whole.
He, whom I had known (long ago, and always glad
to see) now seemed like someone who had sprung a jilt
on some beloved, a friendship soured and gone bad
through his own fault---his face revealed that sort of guilt.
I watched him spend a silver coin to buy a rope---
best quality, stored upon the merchant's highest shelf;
then he, our dear friend Judas, who had lost all hope,
sought a tall tree, noosed his own neck, and hung himself.
Starward
[*/+/^]