Golgotha

Far across the sky, on the horizon line,

Thin black rocks break through the sea,

Air glints, icy, with a hint of brine,

And the remains of a wizened tree,

Knotted and curled by the winding waves,

Shaped into crosses, tossed in the foam,

Come to rest beside the open graves

Of forgotten fish. The hill’s slow dome

Tolls – a tongueless bell, buried in the sand.

Oceans shatter into mist. Rocks like thorns

Cover the crown of the bay in wounds, and

The last fig, fallen from the fig tree, mourns.

Once incarnate, but now that flesh has died,

Living on in all the world, hidden but implied.

By Vijay Keshav