How Shall I Frame the Question?

By Evalyn M. Sandberg

Aside from the torn flesh

and the full weight

of thy poor, weakened body

suspended from the nails—

what was the nature

of thy suffering,

impaled upon the cross?

Surely it went beyond

the sorrow that we

could do this thing to thee …

for we have come to understand

that thou, in all thy purity,

assumed our many sins.

Was there, as well, a special

sorrow in thy knowing

that we would be,

in spite of thy great sacrifice,

caught up in networks of emotion

spun fine as spider webs, from which

but rarely we’d be free—

with now and then

the briefest glimpse

of what we are to thee?