WordsOut poems by Godfrey Rust  | sequence Words from the Cross ← 7 of 7 | home       I  

legacy

I have travelled light, so that the leaving
should be easier. What I bequeath 

is left according to your will
and this new testament: I leave a church 

to be built on a broken rock. I leave
nothing written down. I heard my words 

blown freely on the winds of Galilee
to seed the fertile hearts of men. I leave 

no money, debts or property, no house
for shrine, no artefact for relic. I leave just 

the remnants of a meal. My cloak
is cast aside and gambled for. I leave 

no tomb to raid, no corpse to disinter,
no fingerprints, no blood, no DNA.  

I could have gained the world, yet now
nothing stands between us but this one 

last legacy. Because it is written; because
it is the only pledge by which all souls 

that fill the devil’s pawnshop are redeemed;
and because until I give it up to you 

it cannot be returned to anyone,
Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.