Empty Nets

Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.”
They said to him, “We also will come with you.”
So they went out and got into the boat,
but that night they caught nothing.
When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore;
but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to them, “Children, have you caught anything to eat?”
They answered him, “No.”
So he said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat
and you will find something.”
So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in
because of the number of fish.
—John 21:1-19

When all we knew was lost and gone,
our world unsettled as the wave,
still, wonder met us with the dawn:
We looked into your empty grave.

We sail now as we've always sailed,
but all our nets come empty back—
yet we recall the baskets filled,
abundance you brought from our lack.

Our hunger you turned to a feast,
and even death you turned to life.
But we must go on restless seas:
Can you bring peace out of our strife?

A voice cries, “Cast your nets once more.”
We do, though we have fished all night—
and you are standing on the shore
and all the world is new and bright.

Now all that had been emptied out
is filled with more than it can hold.
The long night of our dread and doubt
pours forth the morning turning gold.

And there you stand, the Son of God,
inviting us to break our fast,
in restless seas our solid rock,
our certainty and home at last.

Painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, circa 1913 – Google Arts & Culture — LAHsSESclImgWA, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71770460

Paper Wasp

I watched the paper wasps with trepidation
build up a nest in a corner of the porch,
and yet there's something in their dedication:
The urge to build cathedrals still endures.

It's after Easter.  Spring has finally flourished,
though April's rains are bleeding into May.
Yet through those storms so much we bear has burgeoned.
The Lord giveth; the Lord taketh away.

Today a blue jay found the nest.  I thought of
my teenage son, the fridge's open door.
He ripped the paper back to steal the larvae.
Oh. blessèd be the great name of the Lord.

And just like that, there is no nest, no blue jay:
an empty corner shielded from the sun.
A single wasp, already chewing paper,
patrols the ceiling where its hope was hung.

Grow up, my jay, my larva, and grow outward
to tear the paper back that holds you in.
You will be torn.  The rain will still fall downward,
and you will build these paper nests again.

A young paper wasp queen (Polistes gallicus) is founding a new colony. The nest was made with wood fibers and saliva, and the eggs were laid and fertilized with sperm kept from last year. Now the wasp is feeding and taking care of her heirs. In some weeks, new females will emerge and the colony will expand. The timespan between the older and more recent photos is about one month 1 – The nest with only a few cells. * 2 – New cells being made with mashed fibers and saliva. * 3 – A caterpillar was caught and is being chewed to feed the larvae. * 4 – Feeding the larvae. * 5 – Using the wings as a fan to cool down the larvae. * 6 – The wasp guarding her heirs. By Alvesgaspar – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3872148

Wounds

I will not ask for what I want;
I wouldn't dare presume.
I shut my hope away to haunt
a locked and bolted room.

What am I is I ask to see,
when blessèd are the blind?
Could I allow mysef to be
so faithless and unkind?

Besides, he said—his word is sure—
the clean of heart see God,
and well he knows my heart heart impure,
so I shall see him not.

But blest are they that have not seen!
If I could but believe.
For sure, those meadows fresh and green
would give me some reprieve

from longing that will only grow,
though it pass not my lips,
to see what no one else could show
and none can counterfeit.

Yet something that will not be mocked
cries, “Lord, I want to see!”
until you come where doors are locked
and show your wounds to me.

Doubting Thomas – Google Art Project By Unknown – illuminator – hgFUz6bXaLmUQQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22185693

Neighbor

There's movement in your empty house;
they're cleaning it to sell,
your life stripped off and blown about
like shingles in a gale.

Your daughter says it's eighteen months
since all your storms have ceased.
They'll fix the house like it was once,
and maybe you'll have peace.

You held your anger like a light,
and like a light it burned
a comfort in the lonely night,
all other comfort spurned.

She says you broke at last and called—
you'd cut us off by then,
ensconced in silence like a wall.
Was that our punishment?

You built that wall up stone by stone,
all stacked and mortared tight.
God bless all those who die alone,
and you alone were right.

No hurricane could bring it down
'til Gabriel should blow
a trumpet seven times around
the walls of Jericho.

But God who saw inside those rooms
where you lived on alone
can make even the rubble bloom
when all our winds have blown.

Waurika Oklahoma Tornado Front-Lit Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=850422

Mercy

You rose, O Christ, creation's brightest morn,
but still you show the marks where you were torn.
On us who wound you still as we did then,
breathe peace again.

On Thomas, smarting raw with newfound grief,
who could not bear the burden of belief,
when he cries out at last, “My Lord and God!”
show him your heart.

And Mary, who your messenger became,
was blind to you until you called her name.
She clutched at you: Her frightened grasp release
and give her peace.

Then Peter, too, who knew himself afraid
but when the cockerel crowed three times, “Betrayed!”
whose courage died, as it lived, by the sword:
Have mercy, Lord.

And even—in your mercy's farthest scope—
on him who dangled from a desperate rope,
poor Judas, come to greet you with a kiss:
Forgive him this.

For none of us can love you as we should;
for all of us, your grief turns to our good.
On us who take our comfort in your wounds, 
have mercy, too.

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio, c. 1602 – Downloaded from Google Arts & Culture using dezoomify-rshttps://artsandculture.google.com/asset/der-ungl%C3%A4ubige-thomas-michelangelo-merisi-named-caravaggio/OAEjjQkNdRL9sg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=120649550

As the Sands

Unnumbered as the sands,
untraceable as rain,
our tears have fallen in your hands,
each one a separate pain.

And yet you know them all,
O Wisdom deep and deep,
for out of nothingness you called
the very eyes that weep.

You gather every one,
each drop of doubt and dread,
and number them as you have done
the hairs upon our heads.

As you have known the stars
and call them all by name,
you know our sorrows and our scars,
and make them yours the same.

So every sparrow's fall
you've taken as your own.
Lord, into every grave you've crawled;
our dying you have known

that we may know your rise.
The wounds and tears you got
you carry where the sparrow flies:
the altar of our God.

Sand from Pismo Beach, California. Components are primarily quartz, chert, igneous rock, and shell fragments. Photo By Wilson44691: Mark A. Wilson, Department of Geology, The College of Wooster – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4436177

Where?

Where is the shining of the morn?
Where is the joy that should be born?
So long have these dry bones been numb,
even the songs that should adorn
the Easter dawn are lying dumb.
Where are the angels who should come

to raise my hope on Easter day?
My heart a stone to roll away,
it hides the hollow where I'm cleft,
as empty as the place you lay.
On glory's morning bare, bereft,
and when I seek you there, you've left.

Where is the love as strong as death
while all creation holds its breath
and hope lies lifeless in the grave?
Sinking beneath a shibboleth
the spotted, blemished flock to save,
leading them through the parted wave.

Then may you through the wound in me
walk dryshod—Moses through the sea,
or Joshua through Jordan's bed—
to let my pinioned limbs go free,
to bring my breath back whence it fled,
and raise me living from the dead!

Pierre Jean Van der Ouderaa – De heilige vrouwen keren terug van Christus’ graf – 1598 – Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp – Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=134036734

Groaning

Today, hell cries out groaning
the grave itself falls ill.
How loud the voice of stone here
that so long had been still!

The maw that fed on Abel
and gaped to swallow Cain
finds nothing on its table:
The feast is swept away.

Another son of Adam
himself lays down as bread
to feed the endless fathom
that long on Adam fed,

and biting down, and choking,
is hell itself disgorged.
The doors of death are broken,
and life is pouring forth!

So every post and fortress
of hell on living ground
shall feel its dying throes yet.
They all shall be cast down!

For all this ground is shaking,
awaking those inside.
A light on us is breaking,
and death itself has died!

St. George’s Church, Haguenau, Alsace, painted wood, 1496 By © Ralph Hammann – Wikimedia Commons – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63915573

Gethsemane

The word you wanted doesn't come:
the moment of abandonment.
“But, Father, let your will be done.”
You'll bend the way the world is bent.

The weight of our mortality,
the desperate comfort Judas takes,
fall on you in Gethsemane.
You'll bend beneath it 'til you break.

We cut ourselves away from God—
it was another garden, then—
and it was then we pierced your heart.
Oh, we will pierce it once again,

but first your kneel to wash our feet,
to give yourself as covenant,
and when the Passover's complete
we'll look upon the one we've rent.

Your eyes, O Jesus, will not see
that looked upon creation's birth.
The dark not dark to you will be,
and you'll be laid, alone, in earth.

All those who're born are doomed to die,
O Son of Man from mankind torn,
but you alone have cause to cry,
“My God, why leave me here forlorn?”

Brooklyn Museum – The Grotto of the Agony (La Grotte de l’agonie) – James Tissot – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2006, 00.159.231_PS1.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10957579

Counted

“For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me,
namely, He was counted among the wicked;
and indeed what is written about me is coming to fulfillment.”
—Luke 22:14-23:56

We had Eden, but we lost it,
and our lives as leaves are flown.
Now a chasm—Lord, you crossed it—
lies between us and your throne.
You are counted with the fallen,
flesh of flesh and bone of bone.

Now into creation's burden
you have come to bear its griefs,
and at last to crush the serpent
died, a leaf among the leaves.
You were counted with the worthless,
as a thief among the thieves.

Knowing this would mean your slaughter,
still you filled the wounded world.
Even the rope that Judas knotted
had you woven in the cord.
You were counted with the godless,
and you took their death as yours.

Even the leaf by winter withered
clinging empty to the vine
you will draw into your kingdom
when you drink the brand-new wine.
You were counted with the sinners:
Count us, Lord, with the divine.

Ecce Homo, Nuno Gonçalves, 15th century By Unknown author – [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6014228