"The Dungeon"

 A-Poem-a-Day Until Resurrection Day

Stairway to the dungeon

beneath the House of Caiaphas

THE DUNGEON

Israel Pilgrimage—2006

 

There is a pit

that was beneath the House of Caiaphas

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 now—

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 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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[1] Psalm 22:17-18 NASB

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