legacy

wordsout by godfrey rust
words from the cros s < 7 of 7

SD Ascension

legacy

I have travelled light
so that the leaving should be easier.

What I bequeath is left according to your will
and this new testament. I leave a church

to be built on a broken rock. I leave
nothing written down. I heard my words

blown freely on the winds of Galilee
to seed the hearts of men. I leave no money,

debts or property, no house for shrine,
no artefact for relic. I leave just

the remnants of a meal. My cloak
is cast aside and gambled for. I leave

no tomb to raid, no corpse to disinter
no fingerprints, no blood, no DNA.

I could have gained the world,
but nothing now stands between us

but this one last legacy: because
it is written, because

it holds the only power with which
the trap of human death will be unsprung

and because until I give it up to you
it cannot be returned to anyone

father into your hands
I commit my spirit.

Seventh and last poem in the sequence words from the cross. The closing section was revised in February 2018.