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

Taken In Adultery

Another take on Sunday’s Gospel:

I have sinned, and I shall perish:
Lord, the punishment is just.
Mene, mene, tekel, peres,
you are writing in the dust.

Every idol that had beckoned,
I turned wanton and gave chase,
every minute, every second:
Now you've numbered all my days.

You have weighed me, found me wanting:
Insubstantial is my heart,
for I cast it on the waters
and the waves pulled it apart.

So here come the Medes and Persians
for the fragments I have left.
All my loves and my aversions:
I am fraying, warp and weft.

But all those who read my sentence
in the dust that is our grave
bear no witness to repentance:
They have faded like the wave

as the letters you have written
vanish at your merest breath,
and you write a new acquittance
on my heart, erasing death.

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1565 by Pieter Bruegel, oil on panel, 24 cm × 34 cm (9.4 in × 13.4 in) – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15452042

Go and Sin No More

Mashing up today’s readings:

What was spoken in the darkness
shaped all things as they were then—
so the earth and seas were parted
'til God brings them back again,
'til his rivers fill the desert
or the ocean waters stand,
'til he brings us to his presence
and we find the promised land.

What was spoken in creation 
earth and ocean answered true.
Now is God all things remaking—
he is doing something new.
Crossing deserts, crossing waters,
all that once kept us apart,
he seeks out his sons and daughters
and he brings them to his heart.

What was spoken first in Eden
making all things, making us,
he is writing at our feet here,
drawing new life from the dust.
Not the words of condemnation
for the things that came before,
but the words of new creation:
Go, my own, and sin no more.

Maps

O God, if it were simple, would you tell me,
Or is that wisdom only worth its cost?
I've bought so much that others tried to sell me,
but every map I've followed got me lost.

There is a process, paring down the dead weight,
a strange impatience in passivity,
of letting change occur when it feels too late
as wounds heal in a wonder I can't see.

I fling myself against the bars of waiting—
how many of these scars are from my hands?
but when the moment comes I find I'm ready,
and some new map unfolds for distant lands.

So bandages and scabs fall off behind me—
They have to: I can't carry any more.
You are the road I tread, so I tread lightly.
You are the road, and then you are the door.

Then let me lay down all my old resentments.
The needle's eye's not big enough for these.
I've got a ways to go to reach that entrance.
Lord, guide my feet into the way of peace.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi, Hereford Cathedral, England, c. 1300, a classic “T-O” map with Jerusalem at the center, east toward the top, Europe the bottom left and Africa on the right By Unknown author – unesco.org.uk, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41201813

Sennacherib

Based on 2 Kings 19.

Sennacherib has trampled down
the gods of every land:
They lie there on the ruined ground,
all victim to his hand.
Then shall we trust the God who saves
when other gods are lost
and topple headlong to our graves
before his endless host?

There's Dagon shattered in the mud,
and Delphi shuts her mouth.
Ba'al wakes not to drink the blood
of prophets crying out.
Osiris looked at him and blenched;
Asherah's pole is snapped;
and even Moloch's thirst is quenched—
lo, all the blood he's lapped.

So now the message comes to us,
all honey-sweet and glib:
We'll be another hive to buzz
for great Sennacherib,
and who shall stand against this king
that shows the gods are weak?
Before the power he will bring,
what promise can we seek?

You lift no sword when all gods fall—
O God, you sink yourself,
and you shall rise above them all
to conquer death by death.
Unforced by any mortal hand,
you are the sacrifice.
And so ends every human plan:
Sennacherib here lies.

Cast of a rock relief of Sennacherib from the foot of Cudi Dağı, near Cizre. The cast is exhibited in Landshut, Germany, Photo By Timo Roller – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39985581

I Have Been the One

He said to him,
‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.'”
—Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

I have been he demanding
my share of all you have,
entreating—no, commanding;
you have been he who gave.
Give me what I'll inherit:
I take the money 'n' run
No, love would never dare it,
but I have been the one.

And I have been the angered,
outraged on your behalf
that for the proud and thankless
you killed the fatted calf.
How can you be so blind as
to ignore what I have done?
How can you not despise him?
Yes, I have been the one.

But I have been forgiven 
again and yet again.
You, Father, are forgiving 
of all that I have been.
You are the one who sought me
in every place I'd run.
From death itself you brought me
always to be your son.

Return of the Prodigal Son By Rembrandt – Hermitage Torrent (.torrent with info-hash), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7490475

Thirst: The Woman at the Well

Reading over the optional Gospel for last Sunday, I was struck by how cynical the woman at the well sounded:

Give you some water, did you say?
Go fetch yourself a drink.
This is the well our father gave—
You'll give me living springs?

Fine.  I won't keep on coming here
to fill the jar with this
through every day of every year
as if it's all there is.

To know it wears away my life
and hunger for it still—
you don't know what this thirst is like,
but someday, oh, you will.

You'll know the hopelessness that burns
beneath an empty sky,
when all your love goes unreturned
and still the ground is dry,

and no one sees without a sneer.
You're left by God and men
with nothing but their mocks and jeers—
and what will you do then?

You'll cry aloud, as I have done
when nights are at their worst.
And who will hear you then, old son,
when you wail out, “I thirst”?

But if God hears—they say he does,
he's close to hearts in pain—
d'you think the Almighty weeps for us?
'S that why he sends the rain?

Then maybe skies will open up
and something new will pour.
And you and I can raise a cup—
not thirsty anymore.

Samaritan woman at the well 1651 by Gervais Drouet – RA 516 Photo By Didier Descouens – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65152015

Fig Tree

Originally for this Sunday, but being posted on the Annunciation:

The fig tree does not blossom;
no grape swells on the vine
that twines around the crossbeam—
yet we shall drink the wine.

And though your arms are empty,
and withered is your root
as barren as the fig tree,
you, too, shall bear good fruit.

For something sweet is growing
to burden barren wood,
its sap forever flowing,
its roots where Adam stood.

It blossomed in the desert
with Moses drawing near,
the Godhead fully present—
Take off your sandals here

and see the flame that dances
where nothing yet had bloomed:
It burns along your branches,
but you are not consumed.

A fount in you is flowing
and never will it cease,
for Christ himself is growing
all on our barren trees.

Traditional icon of Our Lady of the Burning Bush (Neopalimaya Kupina). By Anonymous – http://days.pravoslavie.ru/Images/ii2914&263.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3639213