A-Poem-a-Day
Until Resurrection Sunday
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THE DUNGEON
Israel Pilgrimage—2006
There is a pit
beneath the House of Caiphas
a once dark, dismal, terrifying hole
into which prisoners
were lowered by ropes
under their armpits
Our Lord Jesus likely
was brought here directly
from the Garden of Gethsemane
on the night He was betrayed by Judas
The scene seems less horrific today
than when I was here in 1986
Then, it was easier to imagine
a terrifying incarceration
of a prisoner, especially
an innocent prisoner, alone
amid ominous dampness and vermin
in the very bowels of the earth
The pit is located beneath a church—
the Church of Saint Peter of Gallicantu
(of the cock’s crow)
named for where, in the courtyard
Peter denied knowing Jesus three times
It’s been spiffed-up—
It’s brighter. The descent, easier
It’s not nearly as dismal
but, back in eighty-six
as Rev. Wayne Monbleau read Psalm 22
in that detestable dungeon
…they
pierced
my hands
and my feet.
I can
count all my bones…[1]
I closed my eyes, and literally
trembled…trembled…trembled
imagining how terribly Jesus suffered
to wash my sins away
Maude Carolan Pych
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