Judas, Peter

because we are all
betrayers, taking
silver and eating
body and blood and asking
(guilty) is it I and hearing
him say yes
it would be simple for us all
to rush out
and hang ourselves

but if we find grace
to cry and wait
after the voice of morning
has crowed in our ears
clearly enough
to break out hearts
he will be there
to ask us each again
do you love me?


--Luci Shaw (1928- ), British born American poet, retreat leader, teacher, and Episcopalian

The Green Shiver

The forest floor bleak, choked
with old leaves, winter wet. Against
the evidence, buds on the wild dogwoods
glisten, listen for a signal, lining up
for bloom-time—when to burst and who'll
be first? Every year, it's all according
to weather, the wait for the heat-throb,
wind fresh through the naked
birch trunks longing to get green.
The pressure's on, like listening for a
starter pistol, finger on the trigger.

Spring is wound tight enough to let go
any minute. Overarching the ravine,
the cedars start their annual scatter of yellow
sexual dust for the next generation.
The clematis resists her tedium of cold and brown,
cancels her winter sleep with a vertical thrust
up the trellis, like a slow shooting star.

How can we help but hope, sprouts
urged to fulfill a kind of promise—
a covenant with the world that in unfolding,
leaf tips flaring up and out, woody hearts pregnant
with bloom and blessing, we will drink rain, light,
heat for our emerald living. We face the sun
full on—its lavish encouragement for cold to lift,
shift, and move away. Holding on, ready for
that shiver, a sliver of thrill like a jade thread
through a labyrinth, when within us
something fresh and green explodes.

-- Luci Shaw (1928- ), acclaimed Anglo-American poet, retreat leader, and Episcopalian

How?

How shall we sing the Lord’s songs
in a strange land? The old rhythms,
the melodies of praise, strangle
in our throats and the words
fall to the ground like leaves in autumn.
The air thickens with suspicion and doubt
and who’s to say, anymore, what
is true enough to last, to prevail?
Isolation feels like a punishment
for offenses we never performed.
Let us trust, now, the ground under
our feet—that which has proven steady
for generations. Look up. The heavens
are still there, unclouded, beatific.
We breathe, even though masks clothe
our faces. Prayer surrounds us, close
as our skin, weaving for us garments of
trust and solace. Even in our isolation
we are joined in love, never alone.

--Luci Shaw (1928- ), Anglo-American poet and Episcopalian, from The Generosity (2020).

Look!

As we learned how to read, were we 
beginning to forget to look, 
our young eyes caught in tangles of print 
so that imagination was choked? Were we 
trapped at that remove from ourselves? 

Or did we begin to see a new way, with eyes 
that widened in the amazement of reverie, 
memory, invention? As we peered 
between the words, could we make out 
shapes and colors beyond them?

What did our inside eyes make of 
the black marks on creamy paper, on onionskin? 
A dream of angels turned real, perhaps. 
A wooden boat on a lake. Three small loaves 
fragmented to fill all those empty mouths 

and baskets. Or this: a blind man 
opening his eyes so that the first face he sees -
a vision, surely - is Christ's, spittle 
still shining on the quick fingers, 
his mouth saying urgently, Look! 

—Luci Shaw (1928- ) from Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation

Present

At light speed, God speed,
time collapses into now, so that
we may see Christ's wounds as
still bleeding, his torso,
that ready sponge, still
absorbing our vice, our toxic shame.

He is still being pierced
by every hateful nail
we hammer home. In this
Golgotha moment his body--
chalice for the dark weeping
of the whole world-- brims,

spilling over as his lifeblood
drains. His dying into earth
begins the great reversal--
as blood from a vein leaps
into the needle, so with his rising,
we surge into light.

-- Luci Shaw (1928- ), American poet, from What the Light Was Like, 2006

If I'm Lucky

If I'm lucky, I'll get more sleep tonight.
Possibly there's enough bread left
and I won't have to shop. I'm hoping I'll get
the chapter written and the poem will come out
right. If I am lucky, the phone won't ring
all day and the computer will obey me
and not go blank like my mind does.
If all goes well, the slugs will drown blissfully
in their saucers of beer. Maybe the deer
won't eat the tulips. Perhaps it will rain
enough for the dwindled creek to run
again, sibilant, and then may the rain
stop tomorrow, leaving only a pleasing
liquid bubble and blur to thread the ravine.
If seh is brave, my daughter will someday
find the self within herself. If I am blessed,
she will forgive me. If the meteorologist
is right, the dry muscle of cold wind will weaken
and again we'll swing the windows wide.

--Luci Shaw (1928- ), Christian poet, from What the Light Was Like, 2006

Crossing

My right hand--
when I cross myself--
patterns me with Presence
--Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost--
here in my head, my heart
(where I need it most),
my left side and my right.
Thus crossed before the cross,
I am signed both with
death and life,
the intersection of
darkness with light.

But with that crossing
in whatever holy place,
my dextrous right hallows
its sinister fellows
Through Grace
rather than competing,
the agile blesses
the awkward part,
the strong (the one
that feeds me when I'm eating)
exalts the weak.

At Eucharist, or at table
for any sustaining meal,
the food I manage with
my right hand also feeds
the part less able
on its own to spoon or speak
for its own needs
So here I kneel,
left hand cupped under right,
taking for both enough bread
for the journey,
for each enough strength
for the week.

--Luci Shaw (1928-), American poet and Episcopal layperson, from What the Light Was Like, 2006

Spring Song: Very Early Morning

All the field's a hymn! All

dandelions give glory, gold

and silver. All trilliums unfold

white flames above their trinities

of leaves. All wild strawberries

and massed wood violets reflect the skies'

clean blue and white.

All brambles, all daisies,

all stalks and stems lift to the light.

All young wildflower bells

tremble on hair

springs in the bright air's

carillon touch. Last year's yarrow

(raising brittle star skeletons)

tells: age is not past praising.

All small, low, unknown,
unnamed weeds
show their impossible greens.
All grasses sing,
gone on clear tone.
All mosses spread a spring-
soft velvet for our feet,
and by all means
all leaves, buds, flowers cup
jewels of fire and ice
holding up
to this kind morning's heat
their silver sacrifice.

-- Luci Shaw (1928- ), from The Green Earth: Poems of Creation

A Song for Simplicity

There are some things that should be as they are:
plain unadorned, common, and all-complete;
things not in a clutter, not in a clump,
unmuddled and unmeddled with,
the straight, the smooth, the salt, the sour, the sweet.
For all that's timeless, untutored, untailored, and untooled,
for innocence unschooled,
for unplowed prairie, primal snow and sod,
water unmuddied, wind unruled,
for these, thank God.

-- Luci Shaw (1928- ), from The Green Earth: Poems of Creation

Royalty

He was a plain man
and learned no latin.

Having left all gold behind
he dealt out peace
to all us wild ones
and the weather.

He ate fish, bread,
country wine and God's will.

Dust sandaled his feet.

He wore purple only once,
and that was an irony.


--Luci Shaw (1928- ) from Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation, 2006