“Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me Master, Lord; and so I am. I saw you quake with fear as I washed your feet, though it was I, your friend, was swept away. For I could do no less than bow and kiss the battered feet of those who bring good news.
Tell them of my tears with your good news, of love so ardent it embarrassed you. Always you must feel the shock of my kiss when I, with bowl and water, bowed. I am a servant before you, to show a way beyond the farthest travels of your feet.
You must know the beauty of filthy feet, their familiar stench, mud and slime, the news of poverty. Their dirty nails claw away illusions of this world’s pretty dreams. You, perhaps, will apprehend why I am helpless on this festive night. I must kiss,
I cannot resist, I feel compelled to kiss you as a mother sucks her baby’s feet, a husband holds his hungry bride, I am sated with desire. This comes as news, this fatal weakness of your Master. You shudder, you cringe, you want to push away.
You think there’s got to be another way. Before this night is done a traitor’s kiss, one whose feet I washed, a man you thought you knew, will clear a path. My bleeding feet, obedient, must follow . Bitter news accompanies a gracious word. I am
going to my Father; always I am with you. Tomorrow you will see a way leading where I go, you must spread the news. God’s own purity, descending, will kiss your soul as I have bathed your lovely feet. Then, with all my soul, I will have loved you
to the end. I am my father’s kiss sweeping you away from off your feet with news of great joy, to gladden you.
A moment passes by with every breath And the future, channeled through this slit of now Gives way to a backlog of opportunities Lost, never reclaimed or rediscovered Even as an infinity of futurities unimaginable Eagerly pile up behind this narrow strait.
Dear Aging Heart, we have walked an ancient street Which anguished time forgot, with labored breath Navigating cycles of years with imagined Pleasures that seemed so real then, but now They reel like errant importunities. Can memories unlimited discover
In rude stories unrued, undiscovered Airs or gusts of goodness? The straight Path on which I set out despite the portents Was fair enough, I think; and yet I breathe Worrisome belabored stories and I know That no one – or few – can imagine
The troubles I have caused. But doesn’t Imagination Work with Grace and Bliss to cover The past in future glory? And the now Has a mystic, magic madness that straightens Twisted, tortured traumas until their breath Comes easily and their importance
Sounds of blessed opportunities. No one on this side of the grave imagines The endless openings that curl and wreathe Even yet around each unrecovered Moment of the past. An amazing now, Bending under futures’ pressures straightens
And heals even that most regretted traitor’s Kiss. It harrows hell and finds unfortunates Who could not dream of knowing Happiness. Their lives lost and unmanaged, Unremembered shall be recovered And they will rise up breathing.
Okay, Doctor, explain this to me: Here I am in outer space With no particular place to go, And nothing huge nearby. Let's say I'm confined to an elevator, With air to breathe and all that, With my feet on the floor, Accelerating at one g, and you say That's same as standing On solid ground. They're not similar, You say, they're the same. So the ground is pushing up, invading As it were, my space at one g acceleration, Even as my inertia resists.
It's like this: the agony you feel In your obedience? It's the glory of God. Get it?
The hotel lobby seemed the right place To scan the news and flip the scandal sheets, To pass the quiet hours in chaste Waiting for the night. I never considered its location between the pool and women’s quarters. When she suddenly appeared over me Wrapped neck-to-toe in muumuu With a thick towel turbaned on her head, And plopped down next to me on the pillowed couch A storm surge scent of warm, freshly-bathed woman swept over me. Ancient smells of damp hair, flushed pink Flesh, clean, radiant skin, wholesome sweat, And steaming, toweled nakedness, Mother, sister, lover, desire Stirred and something moved – A crocodilian impulse -- A quickening homunculus -- Moved in near-forgotten nether zones of reckless, scrotal heat. “Now explain to me” she said, “How you do this puzzle.”
The Pythagorean grid Could not contain the thought That somewhere in that terrycloth, Was moist feral flesh. My lusting shoulder Rose of its own accord and my mouth Watered to tongue her neck as I pulled my elbow back to my ribs And my arm, an arc of resignation, Rested in my lap. My unstilled Fingers, dissatisfied, dithered On my thigh as my hasty pencil Clawed at her conundrum. “Don’t go there.” I said to my hand, “The woman trusts you like a brother.”
Satisfied with simple tricks of logic, She tripped off to her room and Evening passed to darkness. My nostrils still reeked with intoxicating Pungency and desire lingered like a broken promise. “Self,” I said, “you’re too old for this.” Not that self had much to say about it. How long had it been since I knew That scent and its strength? Nineteen-ninety? Ninety-one? May? June, New Orleans. Sweet.
Who can believe what we have heard?
A hanged man died and deified;
Isn’t this story a bit absurd?
The whole world saw him crucified.
The hanged man died and deified
Belonged to us as one of our own;
The whole world saw him crucified.
A man as common as a stone
Belonged to us as one of our own.
Bore dignity beyond the skies,
This man as common as a stone.
We could not see through his disguise
His dignity beyond the skies.
Enmeshed, begrimed in politics,
We could not see by his disguise
An excellence that would bollix
The powers meshed in politics.
The holy struggle to revive
An excellence that should bollix
those who rule and now deprive
The holy struggling to revive.
They'll stand at last to fill their lungs.
Those who rule will be deprived
but will praise God with splintered tongues.
They'll also stand and fill their lungs.
And no one dares call it absurd;
Their praising God with splintered tongues.
Who would believe what we have heard?
Amid the shouts of euthanasia death
panels and water the tree of liberty
Eat my flesh and drink my blood
As if we need more outrageous harangue
To insult the intelligent and rile the ridiculous.
Can’t we all just get away from there
to find accord in covenant?
Blood-thirsty, perhaps, but not yet cannibals,
Come now, let us reason together,
Says the Lord
Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man,
and drink his blood,
you have no life; and
Will you also go away?
I could not move.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth
My wounds stink and are corrupt for my foolishness
And I set my face toward the ground, and I became dumb.
I drank the turret's cool air
Spreading playfully his hair.
And his hand, so serene,
Cut my throat. Drained
Of senses, I dropped unaware.
How delicate in love you make me feel.
Montanas too are gods
in their own rite
in other languages
to be worshiped
or ignored
It matters not to them.
Montanas remember in their rocks
the days and nights of seas, glaciers, searing winds.
Their skirts of scree testify
hard times and memories
too bitter for the fragile codes
encapsuled by our DNA.
And yet they gaze with fondness
on the living forms that gather
in their sheltered shades.
They preen in wraps of greenery,
in too-revealing gauze of pines,
and barely hide their leaking, wrinkled
crevasses beneath foundation clothes
of lichens, ferns and fungus.
Montanas dote on darling life
caressing that which clings and suckles
at their madonna breasts,
until the wild hot winds and lightning storms
call them out again to dance with fiery flumes
and feathered plumes of pillared smoke,
to celebrate communion with their deities,
the galaxies and stars.
I grew up at the end of a coal cinder road on the frontier of Louisville, dead at both ends with an outlet to Hartlage Court in the middle. It was called Stuecker Avenue after the farmer who had owned the land. At the far end of the cinders, beyond where the road fell into a drainage ditch and rose up again a dirt path, was Poppy Avenue. At our end was The Big Round Tree. The name PoppyAvenue enchanted me; it was the extreme end of my universe, vague and far away. The Tree was no less mysterious; but solid like a sacrament, and closer. A narrow, twisting two-lane highway, Hartlage Court was dangerous. It coiled not far behind our house. Parents lived in terror of their children playing anywhere near it. We heard stories of the teenager who lost control of his car and sprayed his brains in a maple tree. They had no choice but to cut it down. Stuecker Avenue, by contrast, was quiet. The only cars to get as far as our house belonged to relatives and Dad. One time Mom set me up on her bike and ran alongside as I worked the pedals. Before we got to the ditch she turned me around and pointed me back toward home. In the late 1960’s an interstate juggernaut plowed through our neighborhood, taking farms and orchards, fields, creeks and homes in its mindless course. If there were schools, churches or stores in its way they went under too. It cut Hartlage Court like a snake into two dead-ended parts. Our cinder road, renamed Crumms Lane, morphed into a four-lane speedway. Kids like to honk their horns under the viaduct for the echo, a startling, nuisance noise which Mom finally learned not to hear. But that's too many years passed my story. The challenge of writing spiritual geography is making a place stay in the narrow moment when you were there. Old Man Stuecker used to swear at his plow horses in German on the other side of Stuecker Avenue. I don't actually remember that either. Mom said she was glad we didn't speak German. Our first house was a second hand Quonset hut. Dad found it in the classifieds behind a filling station and purchased what looked like a pile of scrap lumber for a nominal sum. He set it up as a T rather than its original I-shape, but it still looked like a barrel buried half in the ground. Its green tar shingle roof stretched in long sheets over the arch to the cinder block foundations on either side, the house lacked proper walls, except at its three ends.
If our Quonset hut suggested frontier poverty, The Big Round Tree spoke of majesty. It stood about two hundred yards off our property and seemed to be owned by no one. It belonged to itself. Had anyone needed a landmark to find his way that oak tree was unmistakable: "Just hang a right at The Big Round Tree and that's Hartlage Court." Because it stood alone with no other trees, several of its broad muscular limbs stretched horizontally, parallel to the dry, barren earth beneath it. Like a man who takes as much space as you give him because no one pushes back, this tree annexed land in every direction. Its crest, if not round like a ball, nevertheless arced into the arch of the sky. Its size and strength and dense, impenetrable foliage suggested the eternal life of endless seasons. In the heat of the summer when I devoured library books – the Box Car Children, The Bobbsey Twins, TomSwift, Tarzan and the Apes, and so forth – one a day -- I often sat reading in the shade of that tree. It was our living room, meeting spot and play room. If anyone were inclined to prayer it was as good a place as any.
I often studied the prospect of climbing The Big Round Tree, and assayed various schemes, but its lowest branches were far above my reach. One limb especially invited contemplation. It was not much higher than the ceiling in your living room, but thick, too much to grab with the claws of one’s hands. Even a grown man could not leap up and clamber onto it; much less, a boy. One time, thinking we might attain the impossible at last, we threw a rope over that limb, tied the other end around my neighbor Bruce and hauled him up. He dangled there in the air, kicking his feet and trying to get a hold. For reasons only God could explain someone let go the rope, the rest of us lost our grip, and he fell. We didn't mean to break his arm. He jumped up and ran home bawling, and wore a plaster cast the rest of the summer.
Like many old things in our neighborhood, the tree was not given a dignified death. First they lopped branches off for power lines to run through it, then chopped off the whole side as they paved our cinders into macadam. When I came home in late May from the seminary I found its branches and trunk lying on the ground. Its root ball hulked over a massive hole. In another year or two the Caterpillars would return to build a strip mall. Today, in place of The Big Round Tree, a thick iron pipe, anchored in cement, hoists a large, wind-damaged fluorescent sign. The sign posts the presence and desperate needs of a liquor store.
Enormous Jupiter, or so I’m told, Observed from deep, deep space, orbits Our neighbor sun in solitude, a sole companion with – perhaps – some smaller bits of space debris. Its core, a diamond sphere of earth-sized crystal carbon sheathed in dense and swirling liquid gas, approaches near to thermonuclear might. It might ascend to stardom……… .........………….So the Blessed Mary soars in orbit round her son, and those who see the woman and the God whom she adores devoutly pray to join her company. They glory in the radiance of her light, astonished by the mercy of a widow’s mite.
His records describe another derelict, wasted by warfare and consummate passions, ripped by currents of public demand. I have what you want and you should only ask -- or take. It doesn’t matter which. They persist because neither he nor they can imagine differently. They wanted booze, they wanted cigarettes, they wanted sex or something like it and he gave his all, his body to war, his lungs to smoke, his liver to beer, his mind to lust and now he’s old and broken at fifty, with children who want nothing because he had nothing for them. He wanted so much to be somebody and now he is a wasted body in the VA hospital. Despite the records he wasn’t crazy when I talked with him. He accepted my prayers just as he accepted everyone’s desire. Each wanted something and each took a piece. They’ll send him home soon to resume his smoking and beer and his little garden of tomatoes and blackberries, the little plot where he buried his soul in the kindly soil, expecting something of which he never dreamt.
Resurrection A singularity of silence speaks
astonishing in strength, exuberant
and riant till the distant morning peaks
are smiling with a sudden joke; and buoyant
fiery clouds are cheery, cherry red.
They peel away the brooding mourning sky
to show the throne of majesty outspread,
nor do the waters of the rivers shy
to splash and spray their joy this festive day.
Beyond all hope, beyond our fantasies
beyond the fondest force that might display
some careless acts of generosity
the one who suffered death now lives again;
behold the empty tomb where he has been.
The Ascension Behold the empty tomb where he has been, and notice, if you will, the vacant sky;
you need not stand there looking up, for when
he comes again you’ll know it. By the by,
get moving now. Go up into the town
and breathe, just breathe. You understand
the dignity which wore a briar crown
now shepherds all the earth, and his command
is gentle. Do not be afraid. So good
is God. Retreat into the upper room,
your holy cenacle and wait. You should
prefer your ignorance, and not assume
you know what you must do. There’ll come a day
when -- unexpectedly -- you see your way.
Pentecost When -- unexpectedly -- you see your way,
your heart has found its rhythm and your breath
can pause and linger with each moment of the day,
when life is neither long nor short, and death
no longer frightens or dismays, you find
an openness to whatever comes.
Still reeling at events, they could not pine
for yesterday, but gathered all the crumbs
of memories and miracles to save
them for they knew not what. The air
was still around them, silence reigned as waves
of longing ebbed and flowed; and then their prayer
became a Spirit filled with brilliant fire
enflaming all the earth with God’s desire.
The Assumption of Mary Enflaming all the earth with God’s desire
his mother spent her life in Galilee
receiving those who wanted to retire
in quiet for awhile. They had to be
alone with her whose early willingness
to hear the word of God and keep it safe
had borne such fruit. In Mary came to rest
a spirit wild, whose searing often chafed
the human heart. She made him one of us,
and in her house the wildest spirits turned
to gentleness. The sacred woman’s just
reward would not await her son’s return;
for by the Lord’s command and saints’ advice
the angels raptured her to paradise.
The Coronation of Mary The angels rapture her to paradise,
and fire with air and watered earth atone;
the universe that saw her pay the price
now stands in awe before her starry throne.
God’s sacrifice of Calvary required
a mortal human complement, someone
who was not God yet utterly inspired
to give herself and more, her first born son.
The shackled earth once deeply mired in sin
now echoes saints and angel harmony,
it sings of her whose role as heroine
gave comfort to divine nativity.
So her apotheosis now complete,
The winds shall separate the chaff from wheat.
Judgment Day The winds shall separate the chaff from wheat
as trumpets sound the coming of the Day.
The meek and poor of earth will stand to greet
The victor with his crown of thorns. They’ll say
“We shared our gifts with him, the few we had,
our anxious faith, and soiled love, our tremb-
ing hope, the stored up wealth of sad
long years. We brought them all to Bethlehem –
and Calvary. Who could expect this grace
appearing to us now? The wealthy too
will hail his justice as his broken mace
adjudicates atoning peace. Renewed
in all her cycling seasons Earth shall kiss
in ecstasy the consort of her bliss.
Bliss In ecstasy the consort of her bliss
delights to draw his love. Their plunging falls
abandoned into grace and deeper grace
as each surrenders all control. She calls
him to behold her blemished purity
and he bedazzles her with open wounds.
They gleam like jewels. An endless treasury
From insects small to galaxies festooned
with radiance astonishes the soul;
and then exhausted, she withdraws to find
her body’s natural rhythms healed and whole.
Her nights and days, her gifts of heart and mind
are all restored. And when for more she seeks
A singularity of silence speaks.
A singularity of silence speaks
within the settled hush of graveside terror.
The earth, still thirsting Abel’s blood reeks
of chthonic crimes now closing round, and icy air
of evening grapples him in panic’s brace.
The man, the body’s man perspiring clings
to respiration, its strength and grace,
its confidence and hope that brings
tomorrow’s dawn. Tonight he gives his breath
to prayer in spastic confidence and bides
remaining hours. Before the certain death
arrives, the passion feeds and faith provides
assurance. Courage succors fainting flesh
as magistrates prepare their flailing thresh.
THE TRIALS OF JESUS
As magistrates prepare their flailing thresh
they must observe the niceties of law.
The man entangled deep in common mesh
of family, neighbors, friends must now withdraw
beyond all human ken. He should despise
and be despised, then hanged beyond the reach
of mortal sympathy, nor should the eyes
of God discover in his plight a breach
between his guilt and shame. His impotence,
bewilderment, and pain will disconnect
all ties to earth. His sentence represents
our innocence, his agony perfects
the letter and the spirit of our rule.
A cross will make a pendant for this jewel.
THE SCOURGING OF JESUS
“A cross will make a pendant for this jewel.”
Although the treatment of the man is rough --
their binding, shoving, slaps and kicks are cruel --
his mute devotion silently rebuffs
each insult as it lands. But iron chains
flay his flesh, exposing vital parts
to fecal waste and fetid city lanes.
Their holocaust of violence resorts
to pranks, and every jape becomes a prayer
as majesty endures insult and rape --
humiliation finally must prepare
a man for death. His naked soul agape
before their vile abuse, bereft of God,
they lay upon his arm an iron rod.
JESUS IS CROWNED WITH THORNS
They lay upon his arm an iron rod
then fashion from a nearby tree a crown
of thorns. They roar approval at his nod
and bow their heads to hail their Jewish clown.
The soldiers place him like a king on Zion’s hill
with criminals for courtiers either side
and shouts of mocking ribaldry until
their eyes are streaming tears as if they cried.
A kind of bestial instinct worships him,
an irony beyond insane caprice,
that recognize in helplessness the grim
authority of beauty. At last their mocking ceased.
They stand him on his feet and lead him out
that he with cross and blood might blaze the route.
JESUS CARRIES HIS CROSS
That he with cross and blood might blaze a route
the son of Isaac goes to Calvary.
He can't afford the luxury of doubt
nor draw his eyes away from certainty.
He does not cringe before the crowded lanes
nor search for mercy where no mercy lies.
Abandoned by his own, his gaze remains
beyond that fatal place where goodness dies.
The sky that spoke so kindly gives no sign
of comfort, earth is silent, stolid, mute
as inbred madness growing still assigns
to him all wretchedness without refute.
Like Abram’s son ascending Mount Mariah,
he bears the wooden burden of pariah.
JESUS MEETS HIS SORROWING MOTHER
He bears with wood the burden of pariah,
a fearful gift received so long ago,
before his birth, a fated Jeremiah
called to expiate a history of woe.
So vindication scalds and frenzied temp-
est sweeps the same Jerusalem as mobs
exact again their angry punishment.
The frightened Maccabean widow sobs
and yet she won’t relent. Her son is not
the first to die for keeping faith nor will
he be the last. Her God has sought
her only child, a Christ of iron will,
a gift atoning sin and all its weight,
a gift within a holocaust of hate.
JESUS DIES ON THE CROSS
A gift within a holocaust of hate,
without connection to the earth but shoved
aloft until the city’s wrath abates;
of heavens too despised, a gift unloved,
alone, an offering of self, he will
remain in agony and silent calm.
His body's twisted dance goes on until
his every breath expels a tortured psalm,
an anguished prayer incarnate of his bowels.
And yet his life is not a broken pledge,
for by his shattered gift all sacred vows
are made complete; and through a sacrilege
of piety, insanity of Greeks,
A singularity of silence speaks.
A singularity of silence speaks above complexity, a voice abrupt startles locust eating crowds in muddy creeks. It hails a man’s emergent birth, erupt- ing suddenly from sin-drenched Jordan’s reek. Who born was blameless now must be corrupt with every guilt for he has come to seek the damned. By guilelessness he will disrupt deceiving systems; cleanse with his own blood the face of earth, and lead by sweet allure the lost to heaven’s bliss. Now from the flood this baptized man is born, his mission sure: that he should render from the worthless mud the useful water, lowly, prized and pure.
The useful water, lowly, prized and pure awaits a moment no one might suppose. Neglected like a quivered bolt obscure, it cleanses faces, hands, utensils, bowls to keep the arcane rites. It must demur address of treacherous or sinful woes that desecrate, that blood alone can cure. At last an unknown wedding guest bestows upon the jars a word, a secret sign. His mother sees but whispers nothing more than “Listen closely, follow his design.” “Draw some out. There’s plenty more in store,” he says, “and all shall drink the finest wine. Today’s the day for unsurpassed accord.”
Today’s the day for unsurpassed accord; repent, believe the news, it starts today. Disturbing people, occupied and bored the shouting healer raced from burg to bay he sang the news that thrilled the stricken horde. They came because he brought a sudden ray of hope where righteousness could not afford assurance even for the dead. They laid the sick and crippled, feeble, deaf and blind beneath his voice, before his eyes, within his reach; he cured them all. He’d come to find the ones his father loved, and to begin a new regime of mercy, to unbind the shackled earth, so deeply mired in sin.
The shackled earth, so deeply mired in sin, lay comatose and helpless before his sad- dened eyes. Where does salvation start when so little time remains? His early glad beginnings paled before the demon’s win- ning hand. The healed will die, the muddled mad will slip into insanity again. Were all his works, his signs and wonders, dead? Then Silence whispered to his only son; and gentle Moses spoke of God’s command; Elijah stood beside him like the sun; and beauty inundated all the land. Redemption, mercy, healing would be won with bayoneted heart and tortured hands.
…with bayoneted heart and tortured hands? His body trembles as his spirit soars. Whatever happens, fondness for his friends will shape his prayer within his Father’s court. And that surpasses bounds as every man’s concern impales his heart, a stabbing sword of brotherly affection. When Martha sends him news – the death of Lazarus -- the word invites his final test. He must go down to save a life by giving one. The hour has come. His sullen enemies abound in Bethany, already they have scoured the neighborhood to run him to the ground as silence beckons him to Zion's tower.
As silence beckons him to Zion’s tower the masses find relief in something true; they open wide the narrow gate to shower hosannas down upon his head, and “You are seated on Israel’s praise, your bower is silver and the finest gold.” But few can dare imagine that a final hour of fearful blessing looms, for something new will smash even mantic madman rants; the wicked with the righteous will collude inspiring deadly blooms where desert plants have failed. They cease their prehistoric feud with precious harmonies and soulful cants. For peace must pitch his tent with Adam’s brood.
For Peace must pitch his tent with Adam’s brood apparently to settle old accounts; and some believe his pleasure will include a pound of flesh for every precious ounce of blood was spilt. God’s foolishness eludes more clever schemes, they always pounce on tenderness. Their vanities preclude enormity that steps beyond all bounds. So when he shares a meal of honest bread and common wine, a homely rite of meek simplicity, and comrades plunge ahead, consuming unawares the flesh that seeks atonement for the living and the dead, A singularity of silence speaks.
A singularity of silence speaks in emptiness of time, creates a void of wholesome longing, a need which ever seeks to know its source. It molds a gynaecoid receptacle worthy of itself, so deep as to unbearable, so kind as to commodious, a deepless well in which infinity of good can find untainted welcome formed by human need. Before her breathing or the beating of her heart, before the history of sin can plant its seed a silent movement flowing through unchart- ed depths selects this girl to know and sing of all the prayers of every living thing.
THE ANNUNCIATION Of all the prayers of every living thing from Adam’s sob to Zechariah’s song the sighing of the breaking morning’s breeze and midnight’s weeping of a murdered wrong, alone upon the earth her prayer was heard. For every other plea pled for itself and begged of God a sympathetic word a ransom, healing or sufficient wealth. But she alone prayed thy kingdom come and let my people go her daily prayer. Her constant watch and heartbeat’s steady drum, an irresistibly seductive peer- ing to the reaches of infinity: enticed thy grace to her fecundity.
THE VISITATION Enticed, thy grace to her fecundity discovered unexpected mother lodes of courage in this woman-child. With glee she braved the roads and disapproving scolds, exploring fearlessly the angel’s bond. She meant to witness in her cousin’s room the wind-blown benefit so far beyond ancestral hopes, now seen in barren womb. As ancient Betty hailed the queen of light beneath the searching eyes of Roman rod and Mary sang the failure of the night, the solstice child saluted solstice God. No power of earth supposed what these four knew, the Providence that loves the least is true.
JESUS IS BORN IN BETHLEHEM The Providence that loves the least is true especially to dwellers by the edge where goods are scarce and services are few. They wait upon the heads of state who pledge to honor every sacrifice the poor can make to keep the powerful in might; but in their hearts they know they must endure the claims of arrogance until the night sky splits apart and angels sing of joy beyond imagining. When heaven’s splend- or floods the darkened plain and baby boy lies swaddled in a cote they will attend the one whose holy name, Messiah-Lord, will calm discord and shatter every sword.
THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE
Will calm discord and shatter every sword when forty days have passed, and Mary brings her first-born to the temple? Will doddering hoard of creeds dissolve and welcome infant things to purify a world of stony hearts? An ancient seer snatched the infant from the maid amazed and wept, “My life departs, O Holy God, and now I must succumb before the one whose coming was foretold.” The widowed prophet Anna came upon the company and saw her life unfold. They sang to Zion’s anawim this song, As Eli welcomed Hannah’s Samuél, We bless thee God and greet Emmanuél.
THE WORSHIP OF THE MAGI We bless thee God and greet Emmanuél Mysterious strangers whisper to the child. The evening gloom hears joyous sobs wel- ling up, but now they speak of rumors wild that sweep Jerusalem, and hearings with the priests and Levites and King Herod's court, how churlish mobs recall the ancient myth of God's Messiah. Heeding their report, and troubled by the fatal scent of myrrh portending death to Rachel’s little ones, Joseph startles up the night with her his fainting wife and nursing babe; he runs for Africa. But angels overhead his every step protect where he is led.
MARY AND JOSEPH DISCOVER JESUS IN THE TEMPLE His every step protect where he is led, but even angels marvel at his ways. The joy of social gathering, he’ll shed companionship to walk off in a daze of absent-minded thoughtfulness; and yet attentive, often wrapped in wonder at the flight of bugs, the squirm of worms, the fret of neighbors for their kin. In awe he sat with elders, asking of God’s word, as he the Word Made Flesh, opened visions for their eyes. This twelve-years boy can see the deep dimensions of the law and soar beyond the fated year of seventy weeks -- A singularity of silence speaks.
A member of this fellowship, I find The hope that stirs in me belongs to us. I know full well the urging of my lust And yet retain an easy state of mind. Among these holy men we’re all one kind. We feel both movements of the flesh and gusts Of Holy Spirit’s mixing all the dust And mud of earth in living water signed. How can I fear that God will not be kind To all my foolishness? The stubborn rust Of sin he scrapes with fellowship, and I must Only give my life to ties that bind Me in a company of living men Whom I regard as kin. They call me Ken.
Her auburn hair descended like a cloud, A golden iconóstasis to shroud The touch of trembling lips upon his feet. Her tears like rivers stained with nard and myrrh Washed the calloused soles and horny nails. Her sister Martha stricken like a stele
Of salt in fear, a bewildered stele She sees without seeing, eyes clouded By memories of foolishness, but nails Had ripped her dreams of late, and pallid shrouds. Aromas of her kitchen smelt of myrrh A taint of death, disease and rotting feet.
The prophet felt the kisses on his feet, The hot salt tears. They spoke of knives of steel In local villages, an ominous murmur That trailed the hero’s path, a dusty cloud Of discontent. Beneath her auburn shroud Of grief the woman prophet’s lacquered nails
Unconsciously portended savage nails Which soon would stab the prophet’s hands and feet. No brilliant canopy of light would shroud Him from the glares as passing strangers steal His nakedness. O’erhead the passing clouds Like senseless grazing cows will neither murmur
Thoughts upon his plight nor smell the myrrh And aloes of his tomb. But slugs and snails of darkness drawn by putrefaction's clouds and fumes will be the first to witness feet Transfigured as the God of All steals Into the corpse. A sudden shroud
Of glory lifts like sails aloft on shrouds Of grace. The quaking earth and seas demur With loud objections as the Son’s Day steals Across the land. His hands retain the nails of pain and ghastly wounds still mark his feet but glory rising radiates the clouds.
The dewy clouds of morning bless the feet Of woman-prophet bearing myrrh. The shroud And nails remain with useless swords and steel.
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Then Judas the Iscariot, one (of) his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, "Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days' wages and given to the poor?" He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. So Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. John 12:3-7
The house in mordant stench of sudden death Fell silent as the woman kissed his royal Feet I could not bear her body’s love Her carnal show of sobbing fiery passion A weeping play of woman-purity And face to floor her hair like holiness
Descending like a cloud of holiness Upon his feet as if the knell of death Had sounded through her purity And stirred up this unseemly show a royal Waste it seemed to me a foolish passion Of bestial need and imbecilic love
And yet he gazed on her with manly love A smile making mock of holiness Betraying as I always knew his passion For the lovely girls who’d suffer death Before the splendor of his royal Glance I wanted in my hands her purity
You say I lusted but her purity Aroused in me a longing for such love I would surrender any royalty Despite his proof of godlike holiness And I'd pursue into the jaws of death A woman who would stir me to such passion
Despising righteousness he shuns the passion I can offer him and turns to purity Of virgin girls inhales the scent of death Delights in smelling sinful woman’s love Extemporizes on her fallen holiness And vows to raise her up in royalty
He’ll have his throne too soon his royalty Will reek with fumes of grief in a passion Of disgrace her rancid holiness Will stink like myrrh and her purity Will putrefy with fetid love This fatal woman soon will mourn his death
I owned his death despite his royalty Her fevered love was true her passion Holiness I lusted purity
I am a Conventual Franciscan priest living at Mount Saint Francis, IN. Since my ordination in 1975 I've served in Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Louisiana and Kentucky, plus a brief time in Melbourne Australia. At this time I am one of several chaplains at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Louisville, KY. Catholics believe a word became flesh and lived among us. How could I not love words? I might say I love poetry but poetry is something like computers. I may know how to use one computer program but I don’t understand all computer programs. Likewise I may enjoy one poem; I might take delight in the poetry of one author, but I don’t love all poems, nor do I like all poets. I enjoy the sound of words. I love their multiple meanings and diverse functions. I love the subtlety of words. They are powerful, fascinating, eminently useful and essentially spiritual. They are breath shaped into sound. How many millennia passed before the human creature discovered the principle of a sentence? It is as perfect as pi. It must be something sprung from Plato’s ideal world of forms. Poetry explores the meaning of words and sentences, stretching these entirely human constructs until they speak divinely, even until they break open, revealing the spirit that forms them.
