Did Mary weep?

Did Mary weep 
At the foot of the cross?
Was she the loudest
Of the wailing women?
Did she lose all sense of dignity?
Did she have to be held back?
I would have.

Or was she silent
Too stunned
By the betrayal, the injustice?
Surrounded by the women
Who loved him too,
Supported by the Magdalena,
Leaning on each other for strength.

Did she gaze dry-eyed
At her first-born on the cross?
And wordlessly question, why.
Did she remember the words
The old man spoke,
“A sword will pierce your heart”?

Did they walk along the shore
She and her beloved boy
Just days before
As the sun was setting 
And did the son prepare the mother?

Did he tell her what was to come,
Did she understand too clearly 
what his words meant?

Did she tell him it was too soon?
He should have many years ahead yet.
There was so much more he could do,
So much need he could meet.
Think of the sick, the dying, the insane.
Evil wouldn’t go away;
It could wait for him.
Did she cry, grab onto his arm,
Beg him, “Not yet”?
I would have.

Did he look tenderly 
Into eyes that were
As familiar as his own?
Did he hold her tight, 
Wishing there were a way
To keep her from suffering? 
Did he weep for what was to come?
For her and for himself?

Did she wonder
What it had all been for?
I would have.

And here's me reading it.