Droplets

A red droplet plummets down onto the skin of my blackened arm,

It resonates white.

Pure white.

Pure, blindingly, shockingly white.

(What is it about the red that transforms the black into the white?)

I look up and see another droplet drip off the death of His dangling doom.

One by one the droplets plop

And with the bursting of each seed of blood upon my skin

I am developed into white, pure white, blinding white, shocking white,

Like the negative of a photograph is developed into its intended image after its exposition to light.

Although in this instance my skin is exposed to red

A red that has been so brutally tormented, so falsely accused, so ignorantly rejected, so violently punished, so obscenely forsaken.

(What is it about the red that transforms the black into the white?)

The power of His blood, His sweat, His tears,

All fused together into one bead of liberty

Of which thousands and thousands fall from the two wooden planks

Trickling from his beaten, bloodied, bruised and battered body

Onto my soiled, sullied, smeared, stained and sinful skin.

I am the color of darkness

I am the absence of light

I am unworthy and unclean,

the lowest of lowlies

that my skin deserves not even the touch of His contaminated blood.

Yet I can do naught but stand in the way of the droplets.

For no matter where I traverse,

The red will always drip,

The black will always skirmish,

And the white will always prevail.

[written November 29, 2010]