Secret Prayer 15

Secret Prayer 15: Why Have You Forsaken Me?

Philip Vassallo

After Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34

The mind-body problem is really more than that.
When His accusers, jailers, scourgers, judges, hecklers, slayers
inflicted on Him whatever His righteous God allowed,
we told the children at our side,
who look up higher than we in the shadow of the cross,
“my God, my God” boiled down to His change in heart.
But on our way back home, no matter how hard we tried,
we could not release their little hands grasping ours,
we knew human bodies needed human words
to say the things of God,
we knew human flesh could not quite know
His suffering alone, and alone, was God.

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Philip Vassallo
Poet & Playwright

Philip Vassallo's poetry has appeared in numerous publications globally, and many of his licensed plays have been staged throughout the United States. He was a recipient of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts playwriting fellowship. He dedicates this poem to  Mike Bonikowsky and Ekstasis Magazine.

Photography by Paul Sandoval