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What I Have Written (Pilate)

from The First Spring by Thea Rosenburg

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lyrics

My hands are clean
because I washed them
again and again
until the brittle skin cracked and bled

My burden is light
because I bore it
until it bore down on me
until my back broke beneath it
and the pain made me dizzy

I stood before him, certain
that I’d done what I could,
that I’d heard the warning rightly,
that nobody would judge me,
nobody would judge me

By the time it was done
I didn't recognize him,
not his face, not his hands,
not the agony that striped his back,

but he did not appeal to me,
did not ask me to intercede,
but marched steadily on,
his eyes fixed on something in the distance

And I begged him,
I begged him to see
that his fate was up to me,
that the authority was mine and at last he spoke.
He said, “It will be done to me as
my Father decides.”

I fought for him then
but their hate washed over me
and took him away with it
into the worst sort of sea,
where the waves are like iron
and the deeps seem to bleed
and he died in it,
he died in it

because of me

It was not the blood or the violence of it
that troubled me,
It was the calm and quiet of it
that finally pierced me

and I wept,
where I was sure he wouldn’t see.

Over his head I hung a sign,
it read “King of the Jews”
because I didn’t dare use
his name,

not when it burned my mouth,
scalded my tongue
and wouldn’t come out

They accused me
of blasphemy
for calling him king

When they questioned me
I said simply,
“What I have written
I have written”

When rumor reached me
that he had been seen
alive and well and walking
on this side of the grave
I trembled, afraid

but I believed it

credits

from The First Spring, released April 1, 2013

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Thea Rosenburg Bellingham, Washington

Singing a lot of lullabies these days.

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