It is finished
By Jennie Gordon
St. Margaret’s Uniting Church, Mooroolbark
it is finished
because
death does that
draws a line
interrupts the conversation
conversation sponsored by
book-ended breathing
in for nascent cry
out for when you die
and all the ins and outs
of life
are mocking rehearsals
of the first and final one
and yet they hold
candles to darkness
hope to despair
pain, prophesy and passion
within and without words
sweet, sacramental,
borrowed breath
and we who are captured,
caught between
in
and
out
wonder how
the eternal living word
could ever possibly say
it is finished
because it was
but it wasn’t
and never is