The Donkey

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.


-- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English critic, novelist, poet, and convert to Roman Catholicism

Scripture Reference: Matthew 21:1-11, Palm Sunday, Lent A

Hymn to Christ the Lord

I.

Bridle of colts untamed,
Over our wills presiding;
Wing of unwandering birds,
Our flight securely guiding.
Rudder of youth unbending,
Firm against adverse shock;
Shepherd, with wisdom tending
Lambs of the royal flock:
Thy simple children bring
In one, that they may sing
In solemn lays
Their hymns of praise
With guileless lips to Christ their King.

II.

King of saints, almighty Word
Of the Father highest Lord;
Wisdom’s head and chief;
Assuagement of all grief;
Lord of all time and space,
Jesus, Saviour of our race;
Shepherd, who dost us keep;
Husbandman, who tillest,
Bit to restrain us, Rudder
To guide us as Thou williest;
Of the all-holy flock celestial wing;
Fisher of men, whom Thou to life dost bring;
From evil sea of sin,
And from the billowy strife,
Gathering pure fishes in
Caught with sweet bait of life:
Lead us, Shepherd of the sheep,
Reason-gifted, holy One;
King of youths, whom Thou dost keep,
So that they pollution shun:
Steps of Christ, celestial Way;
Word eternal, Age unending;
Life that never can decay;
Fount of mercy, virtue-sending;
Life august of those who raise
Unto God their hymn of praise,
Jesus Christ!

III.

Nourished by the milk of heaven,
To our tender palates given;
Milk of wisdom from the breast
Of that bride of grace exprest;
By a dewy spirit filled
From fair Reason’s breast distilled;
Let us sucklings join to raise
With pure lips our hymns of praise
As our grateful offering,
Clean and pure, to Christ our King.
Let us, with hearts undefiled,
Celebrate the mighty Child.
We, Christ-born, the choir of peace;
We, the people of His love,
Let us sing, nor ever cease,
To the God of peace above.

-- Clement of Alexandria (150-@215 CE), Greek teacher, philosopher, theologian, and Father of the Church

Scripture Reference: Matthew 21:1-11, Palm Sunday, Lent A

Image: Jesus's Entry Into Jerusalem, fresco, Dionysiou Monastery Mt. Athos

The Annunciation

Ashes of paper, ashes of a world
Wandering, when fire is done:
We argue with the drops of rain!

Until one comes Who walks unseen
Even in elements we have destroyed.
Deeper than any nerve
He enters flesh and bone.
Planting His truth, He puts our substance on.
Air, earth, and rain
Rework the frame that fire has ruined.
What was dead is waiting for His Flame.
Sparks of His Spirit spend their seeds, and hide
To grow like irises, born before summertime.
These blue thinas bud in Israel.

The girl prays by the bare wall
Between the lamp and the chair.
(Framed with an angel in our galleries
She has a richer painted room, sometimes a crown.
Yet seven pillars of obscurity
Build her to Wisdom’s house, and Ark, and Tower.
She is the Secret of another Testament
She owns their manna in her jar.)

Fifteen years old -
The flowers printed on her dress
Cease moving in the middle of her prayer
When God, Who sends the messenger,
Meets His messenger in her Heart.
Her answer, between breath and breath,
Wrings from her innocence our Sacrament!
In her white body God becomes our Bread.

It is her tenderness
Heats the dead world like David on his bed.
Times that were too soon criminal
And never wanted to be normal
Evade the beast that has pursued
You, me and Adam out of Eden’s wood.
Suddenly we find ourselves assembled
Cured and recollected under several green trees.

Her prudence wrestled with the Dove
To hide us in His cloud of steel and silver:
These are the mysteries of her Son.
And here my heart, a purchased outlaw,
Prays in her possession
Until her Jesus makes my heart
Smile like a flower in her blameless hand.


--Thomas Merton (Father Louis) (1915-1968) American convert to Catholicism, Trappist monk, poet and spiritual author. 

Aubade: The Annunciation

When the dim light, at Lauds, comes strike her window,
Bellsong falls out of Heaven with a sound of glass.

Prayers fly in the mind like larks,
Thoughts hide in the height like hawks:
And while the country churches tell their blessings to the distance,
Her slow words move
(Like summer winds the wheat) her innocent love:
Desires glitter in her mind
Like morning stars:

Until her name is suddenly spoken
Like a meteor falling.

She can no longer hear shrill day
Sing in the east,
Nor see the lovely woods begin to toss their manes.
The rivers have begun to sing.
The little clouds shine in the sky like girls:
She has no eyes to see their faces.

Speech of an angel shines in the waters of her thought
like diamonds,
Rides like a sunburst on the hillsides of her heart.

And is brought home like harvests,
Hid in her house, and stored
Like the sweet summer’s riches in our peaceful barns.

But in the world of March outside her dwelling,
The farmers and the planters
Fear to begin their sowing, and its lengthy labor,
Where, on the brown, bare furrows,
The winter wind still croons as dumb as pain.


-- Thomas Merton (Father Louis) (1915-1968)- American convert to Catholicism, Trappist monk, poet and spiritual author. An aubade is a French dawn poem. Today is the Feast of the Annunciation-- 9 month before Christmas.

Watching and Waiting (Psalm 130)

          Dare I enter the dark?

                Refrain: costing not less than everything,
                all manner of things shall be well.

Empty, exhausted, and ravaged,
in the depths of despair I writhe.
Anguished and afflicted, terribly alone,
I trudge a bleak wasteland, devoid of all love.

In the echoing abyss I call out:
no God of Compassion hears my voice.
Yet still I pray, Open your heart,
for my tears well up within me.

If you keep account of all that drags me down,
there is no way I can ever stand firm.
Paralyzed and powerless, I topple over,
bound by the evil I hate.

But with you is forgiveness and grace,
there is nothing I can give - it seems like a death.
The power of your love is so awesome:
I am terrified by your freeing embrace.

Drawn from the murky deeps by a fishhook,
I shout to the air that will kill me:
must I leave behind all that I cherish
before I can truly breathe free?

Suspended between one world and the next,
I waited for you, my God.
Apprehension and hope struggled within me,
I waited, I longed for your word.

As a watchman waits for the morning,
through the darkest and coldest of nights,
more even than the watchman who peers through the gloom,
I hope for the dawn, I yearn for the light.

You will fulfill your promise to bring me alive,
overflowing with generous love.
You will free me from the grip of evil,
O God of mercy and compassion.

Touching and healing the whole of my being,
you are a God whose reach has no limit.
All that has been lost will one day be found:
the communion of the rescued will rejoice in your name.



-- Jim Cotter, Anglican priest and poet, from Psalms for a Pilgrim People

Scripture reference: Psalm 130, Lent 5A

De Profundis

Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.

I never watch the scatter'd fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.

--Christina Rosetti (1830-1894) English Romantic poet and devout Anglican, supporter of the Oxford movement

Scripture reference: Psalm 130, Lent 5A

Stephen to Lazarus

But was I the first martyr, who
Gave up no more than life, while you,
Already free among the dead,
Your rags stripped off, your fetters shed,
Surrendered what all other men
Irrevocably keep, and when
Your battered ship at anchor lay
Seemingly safe in the dark bay
No ripple stirs, obediently
Put out a second time to sea
Well knowing that your death (in vain
Died once) must all be died again?


--C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English author, poet, and Christian apologist

The Convert

After one moment when I bowed my head 

And the whole world turned over and came upright, 

 And I came out where the old road shone white, 

 I walked the ways and heard what all men said, 

 Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed, 

 Being not unlovable but strange and light; 

 Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite 

 But softly, as men smile about the dead.

The sages have a hundred maps to give 

 That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree, 

 They rattle reason out through many a sieve 

 That stores the sand and lets the gold go free: 

 And all these things are less than dust to me 

 Because my name is Lazarus and I live.


—G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English journalist, mystery novelist, and poet, convert to Catholicism at age 48.

Scripture Reference: John 11:1-45, Lent 5A

Image: Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Resurrection of Lazarus

I Lazarus

What could I make of the grass

But a gate to the skies
Looking up
Clouds floating by
Like the shapes of the dead ones
As radiant as angels
And when I opened the earth
Their tombs were all empty
My mother and father
The first to speak
Come here son
O how we missed you
All I could do was weep


— Stephen Rybicki (1941-2022), poet and librarian, from Commonweal magazine.

Poor Lazarus

Live long enough

and salt pork, beans,
yearling colts, honey and butter,
            something will turn into a wedge
            to bend your will.

Missionaries call for my sons to send off to school,
each season when the corn is green.
I tuck them into the rows
farthest to the north of my cabin.
Keep them busy with the threshing as I whisper
their true names into the ears we consume,
            but I leave a path to them
            like a snake
            by slithering away through the sparse harvest.

Frost breaks under my mare’s hooves
when I ride to sign my name at the Neosho mission.
My sons and nephews
traded to industrial school in the north
            for the release of seven barrels of winter rations.

This commerce—
makes me brother to dragons, companion to owls.

Riding away from the mission,
I call to my sister’s youngest child,
            the only one
            still too young for school,
            come over here and ride withyour old uncle.

The boy clambers up behind me,
bare toe notched into the girth for warmth and purchase.
My boots quiver along the sides of the horse’s flanks
            as I endeavor to slip them into the stirrups
            that frame the ground below in jerky patches.

Child, I keep repeating, Nephew.
The horse dances nervously,
sensing my frenzy.
To his credit,
            the boy
            keeps a steady hand on the reins.

— Laura Da’, Eastern Shawnee/Seneca/Miami poet and teacher, poet laureate of Redmond, Washington, 2022-2024.

Lazarus Unbound

John 11:1-45


To the sound of distant weeping I exited:
“Eleazar, Eleazar,” my sisters cried
but the keen came as if from the bottom of a well,
recessing like a long, slow tide; fevered rasp
of buzzing insects in the sick room;
and my scroll was torn in half with what I thought
was finality.

All was still. I rose and spun
and I cooled like a stone skipped into a river
pain and broken body shrugged off, a spent husk:

At this point of the page I resume:
I had shed this tomb of a body and rolled back the stone.
In golden sunlight, walking under a canopy
of lupine-blue sky, hands at waist facing forward, fingers open
as bobbing seas of wildflowers
- anemones and poppies, rockrose, Aaron’s rod-
weave their stems around my wrists,
and I absorb the honeyed petrichor of a desert in bloom,
murmuration of sparrows from a wadi nearby

swallows swooping from the tops of locust trees.
The difference between a field and a wasteland is in the flowers.
All was rest. All was God. All was peace.

A kaleidoscope of colors and I am jerked back
by the voice of love, insistent.
From the depths he called me to rising with a voice tear-choked.
Then the longed-for renewal of breath back into a body
now stretched like a new wineskin across my soul.
I am a somnambulist, stumbling pale in my shroud
toward an aperture so bright all was white beyond,
heart pounding like a child’s eager fist at a door.

--Leslie Barnes Scoopmire, March 22, 2023

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on March 23, 2023.

Scripture Reference: John 11:1-45, Lent 5A

Image: Jose Luis Castrillo, The Resurrection of Lazarus

Onto a Vast Plain

You are not surprised at the force of the storm–
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.

The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees’ blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit:
now it becomes a riddle again
and you again a stranger.

Summer was like your house: you know
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

– Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Austrian poet and novelist, from The Book of Hours, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

Scripture Reference: John 11:1-45, Lent 5A

Image: "Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead," by Ann Lukesh

Indigenous First Fire Ceremony (Easter Vigil)

First Fire Ceremony

A service for Easter Vigil

 

The people gather around a fire pit in the circle outside the church. In preparation for the ceremony prayers have been written on pieces of paper.

 

Introduction by Elder:

Sisters and brothers, we gather on this night to mark the end of a journey and the invitation to into a new creation. We celebrate the tradition of our ancestors with the lighting of a fire, this fire. We invite God our Creator into our presence with the following prayer:

 

(The fire is lit. First tobacco and then sweet grass is placed on the fire. The sacred fire is within your own heart, the sacred place of the most high-- only you can go there.)

 

The Sacred Fire Prayer

We circle around the fire 
We feel the spirits near
We know their loving presence 
As we offer them our prayers

See the gentle smoke rising
From the earth to the sky
Sharing each prayer we offer
With the ancient ones on high

Every thought, every hope
Every joy, every dream
Sent upon the sacred smoke
To the ancient ones unseen

Hear the voice calling you
In your heart you know it's true
Feel the love abound
Of the ancient ones around you

Elder continues and people respond:
O Great Spirit of the East,
radiance of the rising sun,
Spirit of new beginnings,
O Grandfather fire,
Great nuclear fire-- of the Sun,
Power of life-energy, vital spark, power to see far,
and to Imagine with boldness.
Power to purify our senses,
our hearts and our minds,
we pray that we may be aligned with you,
so that your powers may flow through us,
And be expressed by us, for the good of this our Mother Earth
and all that you have created on it.

Elder concludes:
Ancient one, eternally young, giver of life and source of energy, with fire you kindle the heavens to shine. In us the spiritual light of your embrace lights our hearts afire so that we might be your light in the world. We give thanks for:

At this time we will ask for prayers to be shared out loud or in silence. As each person prays they are asked to come forward placing those things that we leave behind into the fire acknowledging that they have been answered.

Once these things have burned to smoke and ash, we will continue with the lighting of the Pascal candle. Sweet grass is added to the fire.

Presider continues:
On this most holy night, in which our Lord Jesus passed over from death to life, we celebrate his victory over death and pray:

Creator God, through your Son you have bestowed upon your people the brightness of your light: sanctify this new fire, and grant that in this paschal feast we may so burn with heavenly desires, that with pure minds we may attain to the festival of everlasting light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Paschal Candle is lit from the newly kindled fire. The candle of each person is lit from the Paschal Candle. The people process into the church and the Paschal Candle is brought to the altar. Each person is invited to follow this symbolic fire.

The cantor sings the Exsultet as we process. When we reach the altar the congregation forms a circle around the altar.

 

Cantor:     The light of Christ.
People:     Thanks be to God. 
Repeated three times

 

EXSULTET

COLLECT

The congregation processes to the baptismal font (a song may be sung here, preferably led by a drum)

BLESSING OVER WATER
Presider continues
We thank you, O Divine Creator, for the gift of water. Over it your Spirit moved in the beginning of creation. Over at your Spirit moves and the circle of life continues, flowing through the wombs of the earth.

People, facing East
Creator, we remember that from the East each new day is born and the spiritual gifts of wisdom and prophecy are nourished by the waters of the Atlantic and beyond.

Water from the East is poured into the font
Presider
Creator of all, thank you for each new beginning. Bless this flowing water from the East and the new life it represents.

People, facing South
Creator, we remember ourselves as relatives of the people and waters of the South who bring us the spiritual gifts of faith and knowledge and the warmth of your creation.

Water from the South is poured into the font
Presider
Creator of all, thank you for the warmth. Bless this flowing water from the south and the new life it brings forth.


People, facing West
Creator, you gave us the spiritual gifts of love and understanding. The waters of the Pacific and beyond see the last light of day and bring in the night.

Water from the West is poured into the font
Presider
Creator of all, thank you for the night. Bless this flowing water from the West and the new life it brings forth.

People, facing North
Creator, we thank you for the coolness of the north, the season for sleep and rest and for the snow as it prepares to be transformed into new water and new life.

Water from the North is poured into the font
Presider

Creator of all, thank you for coolness and rest period bless this flowing water and the new life it brings forth.

Creator, this water has come from different directions, the East, South, West, and North. It represents the fruits of the Spirit and your creation. We have put ourselves into one font and ask you to sanctify this water and use it as a symbol of our commitment to be one faithful community joining together in the risen life of Jesus Christ your Son. Amen.

Each person is invited to take water from this sacred water. In it we are one period in it we are reminded of the blessings that it brings forth. Once water has been poured together it cannot be separated.

 

 

--The Rev. Debbie Royals,  from the Rev. Debbie Royals, ed.  A Sampler: Native American/Alaska Native and Native Hawai’ian Liturgies, Prepared for the 76^th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, July 2009, Anaheim, CA.

Lazarus Risen

Lumbering out into the hectic light
like some dishevelled beast, I found myself
notorious, and would have turned back
but that cool and candid gaze unstitched
my shroud till it fell in shreds about me
and I walked among my weeping, bewildered kin.

Now their houses fall silent when I enter,
whey-faced and hesitant. For miles around
kids run howling home at the sound of my name
and when I pass even the trees look askance.
Sustained by a miracle, like flowers in a vase
my astonishing life continues in parenthesis.

Daily, strangers beat on my door.
How should I expect them to understand
my need for darkened rooms and blankets?
I still remember
Barabbas, drunk, circling the cross as blood
issued like a parable no one understood.

When they buried him I hid and waited
and saw his ragged body bleach the stones
and vanish. My arms hung like questions in the air.
They say my wits disdained that brusque choir
and smile at the familiar idiocy
that drives me now to watch in the evenings

the unearthly procession of light
from the grey loaves of the cemetery.
I think of silences broken only
by flesh loosening, the dry applause of bones,
while with growing confidence the spiky stars
transmit their small, post-dated fires.

–Peter Sirr, from Selected Poems(2005)

Scripture reference: John 11:1-45, Lent 5A

The Raising of Lazarus

Adapted from the original notebook fragment written by Rainer Maria Rilke in Spain in 1913.


Evidently, this was needed. Because people need
to be screamed at with proof.
But he knew his friends. Before they were
he knew them. And they knew
that he would never leave them
there, desolate. So he let his exhausted eyes close
at first glimpse of the village fringed with tall fig
trees — 
immediately he found himself in their midst:
here was Martha, sister of the dead
boy. He knew
she would not stray,
as he knew which would;
he knew that he would always find her
at his right hand,
and beside her
her sister Mary, the one
a whole world of whores
still stood in a vast circle pointing at. Yes,
all were gathered around him. And once again
he began to explain
to bewildered upturned faces
where it was he had to go, and why.
He called them “my friends.” The Logos, God’s
creating word, — the same voice that said
Let there be light.
Yet
when he opened his eyes,
he found himself standing apart.
Even the two
slowly backing away, as though
from concern for their good name.
Then he began to hear voices;
whispering
quite distinctly,
or thinking:
Lord,
if you had been here
our friend might not have died.
(At that, he slowly reached out
as though to touch a face,
and soundlessly started to cry.)
He asked them the way to the grave.
And he followed behind them,
preparing
to do what is not done
to that green silent place
where life and death are one.
By then other Brueghelian grotesques
had gathered, toothlessly sneering
across at each other and stalled
at some porpoise or pig stage
of ontogenetical horrorshow, keeping
their own furtive shadowy distances
and struggling to keep up
like packs of limping dogs;
merely to walk down this road
in broad daylight
had begun to feel illegal,
unreal, rehearsal,
test — but for what!
And the filth of desecration
sifting down over him, as a feverish outrage
rose up, contempt
at the glib ease
with which words like “living”
and “being dead”
rolled off their tongues;
and loathing flooded his body
when he hoarsely cried,
“Move the stone!”
“By now the body must stink,”
some helpfully suggested. But it was true
that the body had lain in its grave four days.
He heard the voice as if from far away,
beginning to fill with that gesture
which rose through him: no hand that heavy
had ever reached this height, shining
an instant in air. Then
all at once clenching
and cramped — the fingers
shrunk crookedly
into themselves,
and irreparably fixed there,
like a hand with scars of ghastly
slashing lacerations
and the usual deep sawing
across the wrist’s fret,
through all major nerves,
the frail hair-like nerves — 
so his hand
at the thought
all the dead might return
from that tomb
where the enormous cocoon
of the corpse was beginning to stir.
Yet nobody stood there — 
only the one young man,
pale as though bled,
stooping at the entrance
and squinting at the light,
picking at his face, loose
strips of rotting shroud.
All that he could think of
was a dark place to lie down,
and hide that wasted body.
And tears rolled up his cheek
and back into his eyes,
and then his eyes began
rolling back into his head ...    
Peter looked across at Jesus
with an expression that seemed to say
You did it, or What have you done?
And everyone saw
how their vague and inaccurate
life made room for his once more.

--Franz Wright (1953-2015), Austrian-born American poet, teacher, and translator, son of James Wright

Scripture Reference: John 11:1-45, Lent 5A

Lazarus

“No, Mary, there was nothing—not a word.
Nothing, and always nothing. Go again
Yourself, and he may listen—or at least
Look up at you, and let you see his eyes.
I might as well have been the sound of rain,
A wind among the cedars, or a bird;
Or nothing. Mary, make him look at you;
And even if he should say that we are nothing,
To know that you have heard him will be something.
And yet he loved us, and it was for love
The Master gave him back. Why did he wait
So long before he came? Why did he weep?
I thought he would be glad—and Lazarus—
To see us all again as he had left us—
All as it was, all as it was before.”

Mary, who felt her sister’s frightened arms
Like those of someone drowning who had seized her,
Fearing at last they were to fail and sink
Together in this fog-stricken sea of strangeness,
Fought sadly, with bereaved indignant eyes,
To find again the fading shores of home
That she had seen but now could see no longer
Now she could only gaze into the twilight,
And in the dimness know that he was there,
Like someone that was not. He who had been
Their brother, and was dead, now seemed alive
Only in death again—or worse than death;
For tombs at least, always until today,
Though sad were certain. There was nothing certain
For man or God in such a day as this;
For there they were alone, and there was he—
Alone; and somewhere out of Bethany,
The Master—who had come to them so late,
Only for love of them and then so slowly,
And was for their sake hunted now by men
Who feared Him as they feared no other prey—
For the world’s sake was hidden. “Better the tomb
For Lazarus than life, if this be life,”
She thought; and then to Martha, “No, my dear,”
She said aloud; “not as it was before.
Nothing is ever as it was before,
Where Time has been. Here there is more than Time;
And we that are so lonely and so far
From home, since he is with us here again,
Are farther now from him and from ourselves
Than we are from the stars. He will not speak
Until the spirit that is in him speaks;
And we must wait for all we are to know,
Or even to learn that we are not to know.
Martha, we are too near to this for knowledge,
And that is why it is that we must wait.
Our friends are coming if we call for them,
And there are covers we’ll put over him
To make him warmer. We are too young, perhaps,
To say that we know better what is best
Than he. We do not know how old he is.
If you remember what the Master said,
Try to believe that we need have no fear.
Let me, the selfish and the careless one,
Be housewife and a mother for tonight;
For I am not so fearful as you are,
And I was not so eager.”

Martha sank
Down at her sister’s feet and there sat watching
A flower that had a small familiar name
That was as old as memory, but was not
The name of what she saw now in its brief
And infinite mystery that so frightened her
That life became a terror. Tears again
Flooded her eyes and overflowed. “No, Mary,”
She murmured slowly, hating her own words
Before she heard them, “you are not so eager
To see our brother as we see him now;
Neither is he who gave him back to us.
I was to be the simple one, as always,
And this was all for me.” She stared again
Over among the trees where Lazarus,
Who seemed to be a man who was not there,
Might have been one more shadow among shadows,
If she had not remembered. Then she felt
The cool calm hands of Mary on her face,
And shivered, wondering if such hands were real.

“The Master loved you as he loved us all,
Martha; and you are saying only things
That children say when they have had no sleep.
Try somehow now to rest a little while;
You know that I am here, and that our friends
Are coming if I call.”

Martha at last
Arose, and went with Mary to the door,
Where they stood looking off at the same place,
And at the same shape that was always there
As if it would not ever move or speak,
And always would be there. “Mary, go now,
Before the dark that will be coming hides him.
I am afraid of him out there alone,
Unless I see him; and I have forgotten
What sleep is. Go now—make him look at you—
And I shall hear him if he stirs or whispers.
Go!—or I’ll scream and bring all Bethany
To come and make him speak. Make him say once
That he is glad, and God may say the rest.
Though He say I shall sleep, and sleep for ever,
I shall not care for that… Go!”

Mary, moving
Almost as if an angry child had pushed her,
Went forward a few steps; and having waited
As long as Martha’s eyes would look at hers,
Went forward a few more, and a few more;
And so, until she came to Lazarus,
Who crouched with his face hidden in his hands,
Like one that had no face. Before she spoke,
Feeling her sister’s eyes that were behind her
As if the door where Martha stood were now
As far from her as Egypt, Mary turned
Once more to see that she was there. Then, softly,
Fearing him not so much as wondering
What his first word might be, said, “Lazarus,
Forgive us if we seemed afraid of you;”
And having spoken, pitied her poor speech
That had so little seeming gladness in it,
So little comfort, and so little love.

There was no sign from him that he had heard,
Or that he knew that she was there, or cared
Whether she spoke to him again or died
There at his feet. “We love you, Lazarus,
And we are not afraid. The Master said
We need not be afraid. Will you not say
To me that you are glad? Look, Lazarus!
Look at my face, and see me. This is Mary.”
She found his hands and held them. They were cool,
Like hers, but they were not so calm as hers.
Through the white robes in which his friends had wrapped him
When he had groped out of that awful sleep,
She felt him trembling and she was afraid.
At last he sighed; and she prayed hungrily
To God that she might hear again the voice
Of Lazarus, whose hands were giving her now
The recognition of a living pressure
That was almost a language. When he spoke,
Only one word that she had waited for
Came from his lips, and that word was her name.

“I heard them saying, Mary, that he wept
Before I woke.” The words were low and shaken,
Yet Mary knew that he who uttered them
Was Lazarus; and that would be enough
Until there should be more… “Who made him come,
That he should weep for me?… Was it you, Mary?”
The questions held in his incredulous eyes
Were more than she would see. She looked away;
But she had felt them and should feel for ever,
She thought, their cold and lonely desperation
That had the bitterness of all cold things
That were not cruel. “I should have wept,” he said,
“If I had been the Master….”

Now she could feel
His hands above her hair—the same black hair
That once he made a jest of, praising it,
While Martha’s busy eyes had left their work
To flash with laughing envy. Nothing of that
Was to be theirs again; and such a thought
Was like the flying by of a quick bird
Seen through a shadowy doorway in the twilight.
For now she felt his hands upon her head,
Like weights of kindness: “I forgive you, Mary….
You did not know—Martha could not have known—
Only the Master knew…. Where is he now?
Yes, I remember. They came after him.
May the good God forgive him…. I forgive him.
I must; and I may know only from him
The burden of all this… Martha was here—
But I was not yet here. She was afraid….
Why did he do it, Mary? Was it—you?
Was it for you?… Where are the friends I saw?
Yes, I remember. They all went away.
I made them go away…. Where is he now?…
What do I see down there? Do I see Martha—
Down by the door?… I must have time for this.”

Lazarus looked about him fearfully,
And then again at Mary, who discovered
Awakening apprehension in his eyes,
And shivered at his feet. All she had feared
Was here; and only in the slow reproach
Of his forgiveness lived his gratitude.
Why had he asked if it was all for her
That he was here? And what had Martha meant?
Why had the Master waited? What was coming
To Lazarus, and to them, that had not come?
What had the Master seen before he came,
That he had come so late?

“Where is he, Mary?”
Lazarus asked again. “Where did he go?”
Once more he gazed about him, and once more
At Mary for an answer. “Have they found him?
Or did he go away because he wished
Never to look into my eyes again?…
That, I could understand…. Where is he, Mary?”

“I do not know,” she said. “Yet in my heart
I know that he is living, as you are living—
Living, and here. He is not far from us.
He will come back to us and find us all—
Lazarus, Martha, Mary—everything—
All as it was before. Martha said that.
And he said we were not to be afraid.”
Lazarus closed his eyes while on his face
A tortured adumbration of a smile
Flickered an instant. “All as it was before,”
He murmured wearily. “Martha said that;
And he said you were not to be afraid …
Not you… Not you… Why should you be afraid?
Give all your little fears, and Martha’s with them,
To me; and I will add them unto mine,
Like a few rain-drops to Gennesaret.”

“If you had frightened me in other ways,
Not willing it,” Mary said, “I should have known
You still for Lazarus. But who is this?
Tell me again that you are Lazarus;
And tell me if the Master gave to you
No sign of a new joy that shall be coming
To this house that he loved. Are you afraid?
Are you afraid, who have felt everything—
And seen…?”

But Lazarus only shook his head,
Staring with his bewildered shining eyes
Hard into Mary’s face. “I do not know,
Mary,” he said, after a long time.
“When I came back, I knew the Master’s eyes
Were looking into mine. I looked at his,
And there was more in them than I could see.
At first I could see nothing but his eyes;
Nothing else anywhere was to be seen—
Only his eyes. And they looked into mine—
Long into mine, Mary, as if he knew.”

Mary began to be afraid of words
As she had never been afraid before
Of loneliness or darkness, or of death,
But now she must have more of them or die:
“He cannot know that there is worse than death,”
She said. “And you…”

“Yes, there is worse than death.”
Said Lazarus; “and that was what he knew;
And that is what it was that I could see
This morning in his eyes. I was afraid,
But not as you are. There is worse than death,
Mary; and there is nothing that is good
For you in dying while you are still here.
Mary, never go back to that again.
You would not hear me if I told you more,
For I should say it only in a language
That you are not to learn by going back.
To be a child again is to go forward—
And that is much to know. Many grow old,
And fade, and go away, not knowing how much
That is to know. Mary, the night is coming,
And there will soon be darkness all around you.
Let us go down where Martha waits for us,
And let there be light shining in this house.”

He rose, but Mary would not let him go:
“Martha, when she came back from here, said only
That she heard nothing. And have you no more
For Mary now than you had then for Martha?
Is Nothing, Lazarus, all you have for me?
Was Nothing all you found where you have been?
If that be so, what is there worse than that—
Or better—if that be so? And why should you,
With even our love, go the same dark road over?”

“I could not answer that, if that were so,”
Said Lazarus,—“not even if I were God.
Why should He care whether I came or stayed,
If that were so? Why should the Master weep—
For me, or for the world,—or save himself
Longer for nothing? And if that were so,
Why should a few years’ more mortality
Make him a fugitive where flight were needless,
Had he but held his peace and given his nod
To an old Law that would be new as any?
I cannot say the answer to all that;
Though I may say that he is not afraid,
And that it is not for the joy there is
In serving an eternal Ignorance
Of our futility that he is here.
Is that what you and Martha mean by Nothing?
Is that what you are fearing? If that be so,
There are more weeds than lentils in your garden.
And one whose weeds are laughing at his harvest
May as well have no garden; for not there
Shall he be gleaning the few bits and orts
Of life that are to save him. For my part,
I am again with you, here among shadows
That will not always be so dark as this;
Though now I see there’s yet an evil in me
That made me let you be afraid of me.
No, I was not afraid—not even of life.
I thought I was…I must have time for this;
And all the time there is will not be long.
I cannot tell you what the Master saw
This morning in my eyes. I do not know.
I cannot yet say how far I have gone,
Or why it is that I am here again,
Or where the old road leads. I do not know.
I know that when I did come back, I saw
His eyes again among the trees and faces—
Only his eyes; and they looked into mine—
Long into mine—long, long, as if he knew.”

--Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935), American poet and playwright, three time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, four-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Scripture Reference: John 11:1-45, Lent 5A

Image: John O'Reilly, The Raising of Lazarus

sorrows

who would believe them winged

who would believe they could be

beautiful            who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals

that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin



sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls           clicking their bony fingers

envying our crackling hair
our spice filled flesh



they have heard me beseeching
as I whispered into my own

cupped hands          enough not me again
enough        but who can distinguish

one human voice
amid such choruses of desire


--Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), African American poet, author, and teacher, three time Pulitzer Prize nominee and winner of the National Book Award for Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000.

Scripture reference: Psalm 130, Lent 5A

To Wales Once More, Though Not On Holiday Now

To Wales once more, though not on holiday now;

Glued to my seat, whirled down a ruthless track
To Wales once more, grasping a golden bough,

Key to the misty west. I am wearing black
Shoes which I bought with Gwilym in Regent Street
To travel to Drumcliff in, five years back;

Drumcliff was wet, those new shoes cramped my feet
At Yeats's funeral; they are not so smart
Nor yet so tight for Gwilym's. From my seat

I see my night-bound double, slumped apart
On a conveyer belt that, decades high
In emptiness, can neither stop nor start

But just moves on for ever till we die.
It is too late for questions: on this belt
We cannot answer what we are or why . . .

Then on the Swansea for the night, benighted
In black and barren rain. But night must end,
And ending banishes the rain. Delighted

Morning erupts to bless all Wales and send
Us west once more our sad but sunlit way
Through hills of ruddy bracken where each bend

In the road is another smile on the face of day.
We stop at random for a morning drink
In a thatched inn; to find, as at a play,

The bar already loud with chatter and clink
Of glasses; not so random; no one here
But was a friend of Gwilym's. One could think

That all these shots of whisky, pints of beer,
Make one Pactolus turning words to gold
In honour of one golden mouth, in sheer

Rebuttal of the silence and the cold
Attached to death. The river rolls on west
As proud and clear as its best years have rolled

And lands us at the village, which is dressed
In one uncanny quiet and one kind
Blue sky, an attitude of host to guest

Saying: Come share my grief. We walk behind
The slow great heaps of flowers, the small austere
And single laurel wreath. But the numbed mind

Fails to accept such words as tempt the ear --
The Resurrection and the Life; it knows
Only that Gwilym once was living here

And here is now being buried. A repose
Of sunlight lies on the green sloping field
Which should hold goats or geese. My fingers close

On what green thoughts this acre still can yield
Before we leave that deep, that not green, grave,
That letter to be superscribed and sealed

Now that it has no contents; wind and wave
Retain far more of Gwilym. What he took
From this small corner of Wales survives what he gave.

The green field empties, with one tentative look
Backwards we move away, and then walk down
To where he lived on a cliff; an open book

Of sands and waters, silver and shining brown,
His estuary spreads before us and its birds
To which he gave renown reflect renown

On him, their cries resolve into his words
Just as, upon the right, Sir John's just hill
Looks now, and justly, Gwilym's. We leave the curds

And crimps of flats and channels and through the still
Evening rejoin the mourners. If a birth
Extends a family circle and glasses fill

Confirming its uniqueness and the worth
Of life, I think a death too does the same,
Confirming and extending. Earth to earth,

But to the whole of it. In Gwilym's name
We talk and even laugh, though now and then
Illusions (surely illusions?) rise, to shame

My reason. Three illusions. One: that when
We left that grassy field, we also left
Gwilym behind there, if not able to pen

One word, yet able perhaps to feel bereft
Or maybe to feel pleased that such a place
Remains to him. Then was it gift or theft,

This burial? More rational thoughts efface
Such whims, but the second illusion comes: perhaps
Gwilym has slipped off somewhere, into the grace

Of some afterlife where free from toils and traps
He revels for ever in words. These fancies too
Flicker like Will o' the Wistfuls, and collapse;

Since, even if an afterlife were true,
Gwilym without his body, his booming voice,
Would simply not be Gwilym. As I or you

Would not be I or you and, given the choice,
I, for one, would reject it. Last, the third
Illusion, which gives reason to rejoice

Or rather strong unreason: what we have heard
And seen today means nothing, this crowded bar
Was one of Gwilym's favourites, it is absurd

He should not join us here, it was always going too far
To expect him on the dot but, late or soon,
He will come jaunting in, especially as there are

So many of his friends her to buffoon
And sparkle with. However, if not tonight,
We need not wait for leap year or blue moon

Before we run across him. Moons are white
In London as in Wales and by tomorrow
We shall be back in London where the sight

And sound of him will be welcome, he may borrow
A pound or two of course or keep us waiting
But what about it? In those streets of sorrow

And even more of boredom, his elating
Elated presence brings a sluice of fresh
Water into dim ponds too long stagnating.

This is the third illusion, a fine mesh
Of probable impossibilities; of course,
Of course, we think, we shall meet him in the flesh

Tomorrow or the next day, in full force
Of flesh and wit and heart. We close the door
On Wales and backwards, eastwards, from the source

Of such clear water, leave that altered shore
Of gulls and psalms, of green and gold largesse.
November the Twenty-fifth. We are back once more

In London. And will he keep us waiting? . . . Yes.


--Louis MacNiece (1907-1963 ), Irish poet, author, children's book author, from Autumn Sequel, Canto XX

Parta Quies

Good-night; ensured release,
Imperishable peace,
   Have these for yours,
While sea abides, and land,
And earth’s foundations stand,
   And heaven endures.

When earth’s foundations flee,
Nor sky nor land nor sea
   At all is found,
Content you, let them burn:
It is not your concern;
   Sleep on, sleep sound.

– A. E.  Housman (1859-1936), English Romantic poet and professor of Latin at Cambridge

Sparrows

Little birds sit on the telegraph wires,
   And chitter, and flitter, and fold their wings;
Maybe they think that, for them and their sires,
   Stretched always, on purpose, those wonderful strings:
And, perhaps, the Thought that the world inspires,
   Did plan for the birds, among other things.

Little birds sit on the slender lines,
   And the news of the world runs under their feet,--
How value rises, and how declines,
   How kings with their armies in battle meet,--
And, all the while, ‘mid the soundless signs,
   They chirp their small gossipings, foolish sweet.

Little things light on the lines of our lives,--
   Hopes, and joys, and acts of to-day,--
And we think that for these the Lord contrives,
   Nor catch what the hidden lightnings say.
Yet, from end to end, His meaning arrives,
   And His word runs underneath, all the way.

Is life only wires and lightning, then,
   Apart from that which about it clings?
Are the thoughts, and the works, and the prayers of men
   Only sparrows that light on God's telegraph strings,
Holding a moment, and gone again?
   Nay; He planned for the birds, with the larger things.


--Adeline Dutton Train Whitney (1824-1906) American author and poet