Mary Magdalene  4

From you
I hear faintly the sound
of nails being hammered through hands and feet.

After the one you loved
had hands and feet pierced with nails
before your very eyes
and died
your body became the shrine
of the sound of nails being hammered,
the echoes of that sound.

Suffering
is the most powerful thing in all the world.
It is the awful dread
of standing before reiterated suffering.
It is love, you too loving.

Until you have piled up ashes
to form a high mountain
until you have bleached blood
into a river of pure water
All that remains unchanged between heaven and earth
is death and love.

So from you
every dawn and every night the pain
of nails being hammered into Hands and feet
knows no end.