Consider the Season

I was a child of ten
and had, from my folding chair
at a Sunday morning service
at the campground’s Inspiration Point,

a clear view of faraway hills.
Hills, I thought, like the one where
the cross Jesus died on stood.
We sang “The Old Rugged Cross”

from memory, while a chilled wind
blew an incomplete image
into my mind, for I was a child
unfamiliar with execution protocol

in the Jewish and Roman world.
The cross I envisioned called to me,
as it has called and called over the years.
It called from the limestone rock

we found at the cabin, a cross-formation
on one side. It called from cool, wet
woodlands. It called from the shore of
the balmy Atlantic. It called to me

with the joy of an empty tomb. Empty,
the cross has accomplished its work
in me. The cross has an occupant now,
the crucifix calling from its link on

my rosary, where a scourged, tired Jesus
is on Calvary’s Hill. God’s Sacrificial
Lamb is suffering, bleeding, dying for
the sins of the world, His Holy Mother

watching, weeping, suffering in empathy.
The crucifix, placed in central view
in the Sanctuary, calls even during
the hushed whispering and unplanned clatter

of pre-Mass chair moving. I leave the
confessional, light a candle, pray before Mary.
I genuflect and ready myself for worship.
The cross will be empty again come Easter,

for we must consider the season, but today
the statue of our Savior—dying on the cross—
catches my eye, guides me to the Tabernacle,
where the Real Presence is. On the floor,

in front of the altar, in a stark Lenten display are
three nails so long they look like rail spikes,
a sturdy hammer, and a crown of half-inch,
razor-sharp thorns, arranged on purple cloth.