What else was I to do?
ignore the High Priest Kaifas
and override the Sanhedrin's decision?
it wasn't what I wanted
especially after speaking with the man
who seemed to me naive
and partly innocent
but who am I?
the owner of a title
procurator - I suppose it sounds impressive
but really just another bureaucrat
a cog within the Empire's vast machine
as such I have no trouble understanding
why the High Priest and his fellows feared
this man whose words whose very way
of being in the world
threatened their authority and undercut
the order they and we had worked
hard to achieve
the peace all too precarious
we Romans and this fractious little tribe
of Palestinians who call themselves
the Sons of Israel
and he this Nazarene perhaps the most
fractious of them all
his words discounting not only the power
of Rome but also of the Temple
and it's servants
placing his petty god
above the world's one power
I mean of course the divine Caesar Agustus
yes the man was a troublemaker
and possibly seditious yet I felt
a certain pang of conscience
a reluctance to approve his execution
and now it's done
I'm sensing a strange loss
the self-assurance that I took
for granted has faded while the memory
of his face lingers like ghost
haunting my days
the hours too
seem to have lost their meaning
and my dreams recur
with troubling images and scenes