-an Ode To Jesus From Simon of Cyrene- 1

(Part One) The first few hours. I was just a ordinary man caught up in the unruly throng, The mob jeering and ranting insults on the road along, I pushed and shoved my way through all the furore to see what all the fuss and melee was all about at the fore. My heart shrunk as I eyed in total dismay that ghastly sight, From what befell my eyes, that Friday morn befouling that dawning day with blight, Was a Man sparsely clad, and bloodied soiled, And about fifteen and a half hands tall, His nut brown shoulder length hair now caked and matted in disarray. The way His hair and beard was parted in the middle down i knew that Man then was belonging to the Nazarene Sect, And brutally entwined upon His head was a brambled thorny crown, What more torturous and bestial torment can a naked body be subject, His body oozed and dripped sweat all mixed with blood and grime, And even more the gruesome was the criss-cross lashes mark, So visible, as He staggered along on that arduous path that morning time, Dragging a fifteen cubit long sycamore torture-stake on His shoulder, bared stark. His back bent and racked in obvious pain bearing that one and a half hand in diameter log, Then when, He stumbled in His stride and before the Roman Centurion Him wanted to flog, For that Man's wretched agony and pain, I no longer could bear to stand, Then in haste that Man to help I shed my outer garments and tossed it to another man, I stayed the Centurion's hand and hoisted that stake upon my own broad back, For I was Simon an Grecian man from Cyrene and favoured arduous labourous toil, When that frail worn-out Man turned with blue-grey eyes and looked at me, I saw in that look, relief and gratitude then I knew, I did just right, He sadly smiled as He said these words to me, "Do you too now drink from this bitter cup?", And added, "You shall indeed sip its rim with Me to the end of time", I knew Him then no ordinary, man could be His voice so gentle and mild, And I truly then wandered who this Man could be? to suffer so cruelly, in the hands of man, When He lightly placed His hand upon my shoulder, I felt the load lightened, as if I walked with a feather on my back, and not His gruesome burden no more, As we together trudged, on that path that road, to Calvaria, that place of death, I then knew that Man at my side Was a Holy-man by His touch alone.