Night-Shift on Calvary

 by Brett Rutherford

adapted from Victor Hugo

 Lit by moon and starlight, they worked all night,
dig and hurl, dig and hurl, the stones and sand,
cross-diggers obscure in a morning fog
that blankets their labors from the unforgiving sky,

no one, even if up at dawn, can hear
the muffled sounds of their pick and shovel
from the clouded upslope of Calvary,
for the River Kidron roars angry below them,

swelling its flood-banks in rebellion.
They stop their work when they have dug two holes.
No one will ever know their importance,
how every wooden cross demands a brand new hole

 in which to stand it; how on this waste-place
of loose rock and shifting sand, earth swallows
up and fills again whatever one digs.
And there is engineering too, to raise a cross 

so that it does not lean and totter so
its passenger might be untied and freed,
the hole must be sufficient in its depth;
and vertical, to meet the centurion’s demands.

 “It’s done. It’s done. Let’s go to get our pay!”
one says to the other. — “I’d rather stay
on afterwards,” the younger one replies.
“Two thieves are going to be put up here today.

“That draws a crowd. I can double my lot
when the gambling starts. One bets on which dies
first. A lottery there is on whether
the crows come, and how many eyes they take.”

 “I am not so cruel,” the elder  protests.
“Work is work, and food is on the table.
Better this than to be the carpenter
who fashions these execution machines all day!”

 But then, like a crouching tiger, a shape
comes at them from the enveloping fog,
the shadowy form of a Joppa priest,
“I am Rosmophin, and I bring you good tidings.” —

 “We are gone, priest! You did not see us here,
and we did not see you. It is bad luck
to chatter and make idle conversation
on the place where the Romans turn men to corpses.” —

They turn to leave; the priest takes hold of shoulders
and spins them back. “You are not finished, fools!
I have come from the court, where I did hear
of great and coming judgments of the day. You men

shall be sent right back up here if you go home now.
Make haste. Take pick and shovel. The hill groans
for another cross.” — “Old man, we are done.
We have dug two holes as we were ordered.” —
The priest points down. — “Now dig a third one in between.”