Via Crucis

The Stations of the Cross

Catherine Burchfield Parker

Peter Siedlecki

BLAZEVOX[BOO KS]
Buffalo, New York
Via Crucis
by Peter Siedlecki, art by Catherine Burchfield Parker
Copyright © 2024

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

without the publisher’s written permission, except for brief
quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza

Cover Art: Catherine Burchfield Parker

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-466-6

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Jesus is Condemned to Death
PRISONERS JUDGED AND FOUND GUILTY
WITHOUT TRIAL

Arrested,
Apprehended,
Disappeared,
Severed from those he loves.
From life,
From his very self,
Given no opportunity
To speak
For himself
In a universe

Reduced to the size

Of a dark and dismal cell,
He waits.
He waits for us to remember him.

12
Jesus is Made to Bear His Cross
HARDSHIP AND LONELINESS
OF SINGLE PARENTING

I know you are in the next room.

I know you are dreaming a child’s dreams.
I know you depend on me.
I know your dreams depend on me.
I know your tomorrows depend on me.
I know I must be the bringer of your tomorrows.

Yet.
With all this knowledge,
I feel so alone in my knowing,
Knowing too that I can hardly
Make any of your dreams come true.

14
He Falls The First Time
EASY TO FORGET AND LEAVE
THE ELDERLY BEHIND

Having been pushed

From the center
To the perimeter,
Having lost control
Of your own definition,
You are now
What others make of you,
When they make anything of you at all,
When they are not squeezing you
Out of their affairs,
When they are not deeming you
A bother whose time
Has lasted too long,
When you have been transformed
By time
Into clutter,
Into inconvenience,
Into something
Whose purpose
No longer exists.

16
He Meets His Mother
PRESCIENCE OF LOVE THROUGH HORROR

Only when the lifeless bodies of children

Float to shore
Do we see what
Love might have done for them.

Only when a child is disconnected

From the family circle
Do we understand
What love meant
To maintaining its circumference.

Only when a husband

Taken by authorities
Evaporates into memory
Do we recognize the hollow
That love once filled.

Only the sudden awareness

Of something within ourselves
That is devouring life
Do we realize how love displaces
Meaninglessness.

18
Simon of Cyrene is Made to Bear the Cross
FORCED SITUATIONS BECOMING
GRACED SITUATIONS

It might be
The grip of nature
From which
There is no shelter,
Or the
Clutch of authority
From which
There is no escape.

It takes you.
It makes you bend to its will.
It tries to break you.

But your own will

Still throbs anxiously within you,
Strengthens you,
Enables you to endure,
To transcend.

20
Veronica Wipes Jesus’ Face
SEEING THE PERSON IN NEED
AND STOPPING TO MINISTER

The day is long

And night will come
With other days
Trailing behind.
Leaves will fall
And return again
As other leaves.

Time can be made

If we need more of it
Before it finally expires.
And,
What is a little loss of time
Compared to what is gained
In easing the pain
Of someone in need.

In stopping to mend
Some helpless, broken thing,
In stopping to warm someone
Chilled by an unavoidable wind?

What do we lose
In challenging that killing wind
Or in offering one’s hand
To the fallen and broken?

22
Jesus Falls the Second Time
THE CYCLE OF ADDICTION,
REHABILITATION, RECOVERY, RELAPSE

It is difficult
To deny ourselves
A pleasure so comforting
Yet so destructive
That it can rob us
Of whoever
We hoped to be.

It is difficult
To say no
To that which calms us
Against the noises of the night,
Against the clamor of living.

We try.
We overcome.
We settle into our renewed lives
Only until difficulty revisits
And the noise of night envelops
And the clamor of living
Grows too loud to ignore,

And we fall into the embrace

Of that old destructive comfort,
Wishing
We could break free.

24
The Women of Jerusalem Weep Over Jesus
PARENTS DISTRAUGHT OVER
CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCE IN THE WORLD

Two paths were traveled

By solitary travelers
Until an intersection
Brought them to each other.

They touched.
They loved,
And in time
Made their love into a child.

But then a growing love

Made them shiver
Within the frigid thought
Of what was contained in tomorrow.

They feared whatever horrors

Might lie
In the path to be traveled
By the living product
Of their love,
And could do nothing
But allow the journey
To continue.

26
Peter Siedlecki is Professor Emeritus of English and Poet in
Residence at Daemen College. He has coordinated the Readings
at the RIC poetry series. He is a former Dean of Arts and
Sciences at Daemen and Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Literature
at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland and at Friedrich
Schiller University in Jena, Germany. He is the current director
of the Catherine Burchfield Parker Artist Salon. In the early
1970’s he was part of a folk singing group called The Circle that
also included Mary Ellen Matta, Tom Dose and Jim Chase and
performed at various colleges and coffee houses. He presently
sings with The St. Joseph University Church choir and the
Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus. He is a former member of Freudig
Singers of Western New York. He has studied voice with the
internationally acclaimed soprano, Cristen Gregory. His previous
collections of poetry are Voyeur (2006), Going With The Flow
(2015), and Le Trouvere Pretendu (2019).