The Holy Cross: two poems

[David Grieve]

15^th September 2025

 

Holy Cross Day

 

As trees shed leaves and daylight sheds hours,

so Christ falls dead off his Cross

to decay below the crust of the Earth.

But he jumps down deeper,

hitching his cross onto his back,

into the dark prison where the dead are kept.

There is no fire.

Their sins are kept frozen in the great ice of Until.

 

Christ unslings his Cross and batters down gates,

smashing all locks, and summoning all the prisoners

into his presence.

 

Look at this, he says.

The Cross is bronzed and serpentine,

the sign of their salvation.

He hauls them through repentance into Gospel faith.

They see the Cross and it breaks out in flowers.

Winter is gone. He springs them up into life.

 

14^th April 2011

 

The Chapel of the Holy Cross, Durham

 

You enter this place simply,

bowing your head,

for Eucharist,

for quiet,

for security and protection

in the dark, dangerous night.

 

It is uncluttered, plain, simple.

You might use a ‘holding cross’ as you pray

(“Simply to thy cross I cling”),

or be aware of echoes of shame

at costing God his life.

 

Cold as the grave such a place can be.

 

But light rises in the East,

the ever-wounded, ever-living Lord,

and you can turn your eyes upon him,

you his remodelled, living stones,

his holy people,

bearers of the Holy Cross.

 

This poem was commissioned by Michael Sadgrove for the commissioning of the restored Chapel in 2011, and is in my collection Love in Thin Places (Sacristy Press, Durham).