"His spirit and his life breathes in all"

 My throat was scratchy on Wednesday, and then I felt warm yesterday, with everything that comes along with that. So I stayed home for the Holy Thursday mass, and the Good Friday service today. I could have gone, but am probably contagious, considering I've got a slightly elevated temp. And who would want to sit near a runny-nosed, trying-not-to-cough person? Not I. But I am better this evening and hope to go tomorrow night.

This is Malcolm Guite's Good Friday sonnet, Jesus Dies on the Cross:

The dark nails pierce him and the sky turns black
We watch him as he labors to draw breath.
He takes our breath away to give it back,
Return it to its birth through his slow death.
We hear him struggle, breathing through the pain,
Who once breathed out his spirit on the deep,
Who formed us when he mixed the dust with rain
And drew us into consciousness from sleep.
His Spirit and his life breathes in all,
Mantles his world in his one atmosphere,
And now he comes to breathe beneath the pall
Of our pollutions, draw our injured air
To cleanse it and renew. His final breath
Breathes and bears us through the gates of death.

-  from The Word in the Wilderness