The One Who Turned Back

The Ten Lepers, Jorge Cocco Sántangelo

      

(Luke 17:11-19)


Ten shattered bodies cried out
for mercy.

Quaking voices carried across distance
propelled by desperation,
a white sail of hope against hope,

their plea not answered in words. Only
"Show yourselves to be confirmed as clean"
and off they ran, aching
to cast off the smothering weight
of exile, the shunning
of those who affirmed their suffering
as mark of curse.

Each step feeling lighter, they rushed on,
all but one. The one who,
even when cleansed, would be
scorned as a mangy mongrel.
Doubly outcast,
his most tenuous claim to hope
convicted the wary heart, and
ignited the fragile embers of faith.

Perhaps for him, the gift
loomed larger, the removal
of living death more precious, the kindness
the more radiant
for being given despite barriers.

Mercy admits no calculus
of worthiness;
gratitude respects no boundary.
One turned back to rejoice and sing out thanks
from the dust.

Ten were cleansed.
One was healed.

-- Leslie Barnes Scoopmire

Whatever is Foreseen in Joy

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day-to-day,
Vision held open in the dark
By our 10,000 days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we are asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.


-- Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, novelist, essayist, farmer, and agrarian philosopher

Scripture reference: James 5:7-10, Advent 3A

Patience, Hard Thing!

PATIENCE, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart’s ivy, Patience masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.

We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.
And where is he who more and more distils
Delicious kindness?—He is patient. Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), English poet, mystic and Jesuit Catholic priest

Scripture reference: James 5:7-10, Advent 3A

On the parables of the Mustard Seed

Who ever saw the mustard-plant,
wayside weed or tended crop,
grow tall as a shrub, let alone a tree, a treeful
of shade and nests and songs?
Acres of yellow,
not a bird of the air in sight.

No, He who knew
the west wind brings
the rain, the south wind
thunder, who walked the field-paths
running His hand along wheatstems to glean
those intimate milky kernels, good
to break on the tongue,

was talking of miracle, the seed
within us, so small
we take it for worthless, a mustard-seed, dust,
nothing.
               Glib generations mistake
the metaphor, not looking at fields and trees,
not noticing paradox. Mountains
remain unmoved.

Faith is rare, He must have been saying,
prodigious, unique —
one infinitesimal grain divided
like loaves and fishes,

as if from a mustard-seed
a great shade-tree grew. That rare,
that strange: the kingdom

                                            a tree. The soul
a bird. A great concourse of birds
at home there, wings among yellow flowers.
The waiting
kingdom of faith, the seed
waiting to be sown.


-- Denise Levertov (1923-1997), Anglo-American poet and convert to Catholicism

Scriptural reference: Proper 21C, Luke 17:5-10; Proper 12A, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Little But Fierce

 

Whoever is faithful in a very little 

is faithful also in much…- Luke 16:10

 

Some pray for faith to move mountains;
but overlook the gnarled and knotty pine
that grasps the cliff face
with roots as strong as talons
that persistently turn that mountain into soil,
daredevil defying gravity and wind
its needles whistling a laughing alleluia.

 

Some pray for the faith of a mustard seed,
forgetting, in the parable
it was an ugly, humble weed
better located outside the garden wall.

 

Lord, let me pray for the faithfulness 
proclaimed by the honest little flower
that’s blooming in the pavement crack
or garbage dump; the dandelion,
maned all in white ruff, who
though spurned, has nourished the bees all season.

 

This is my prayer: 

to be brave enough to offer my heart
like a flare of blue in an autumn sky
without calculus of renown or esteem.

O Lord, make me faithful 
like little, overlooked things.

-- Leslie Barnes Scoopmire, first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on September 15, 2022

The Way Prayer Rises

 

The way the air holds warmth 

like a brimming teacup, tenderly
lifting the turkey vultures so high
their grace is all you see, as they trace
lazy lemniscates 
                     forever,
                           forever,
                               forever,
balancing on a thermal delicately,
black-winged angels gravely waltzing 
           atop the head of a pin

The way the painted sunflower bows
her head under the weight of the bumblebee
and the tickseed heads bristle with hyphenated seeds
that will scatter their blessings over 
the living earth
     and prepare a table before the goldfinch
        in the presence of those who treasure her

The way September’s grasshopper
rasps his way from ditches to gravel roads
his battered wings extolling his travels even as
newborn monarchs iron their wings
     under a radiant, dog-summer sun
          and shadows with edges like knives

The way the redbud leaves dance–
a line in the canopy shifting green to citrine
affirming the beauty of repair, healing, and resilience
like a vein of gold repairing a broken pot
      made more beautiful
            for the continued life it offers

is the way prayer rises and falls

-- This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on September 8, 2022.

Faith

I want to write about faith,
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night,
faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.
But I have no faith myself
I refuse it even the smallest entry.
Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

-- David Whyte (1955- ), Anglo-Irish poet and writer

Scriptural connection: Luke 12:32-40, Proper 14C

The World

I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv’n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world
And all her train were hurl’d.
The doting lover in his quaintest strain
Did there complain;
Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,
Wit’s sour delights,
With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,
Yet his dear treasure
All scatter’d lay, while he his eyes did pour
Upon a flow’r.

The darksome statesman hung with weights and woe,
Like a thick midnight-fog mov’d there so slow,
He did not stay, nor go;
Condemning thoughts (like sad eclipses) scowl
Upon his soul,
And clouds of crying witnesses without
Pursued him with one shout.
Yet digg’d the mole, and lest his ways be found,
Work’d under ground,
Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see
That policy;
Churches and altars fed him; perjuries
Were gnats and flies;
It rain’d about him blood and tears, but he
Drank them as free.

The fearful miser on a heap of rust
Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust
His own hands with the dust,
Yet would not place one piece above, but lives
In fear of thieves;
Thousands there were as frantic as himself,
And hugg’d each one his pelf;
The downright epicure plac’d heav’n in sense,
And scorn’d pretence,
While others, slipp’d into a wide excess,
Said little less;
The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,
Who think them brave;
And poor despised Truth sate counting by
Their victory.

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the ring;
But most would use no wing.
O fools (said I) thus to prefer dark night
Before true light,
To live in grots and caves, and hate the day
Because it shews the way,
The way, which from this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God,
A way where you might tread the sun, and be
More bright than he.
But as I did their madness so discuss
One whisper’d thus,
“This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide,
But for his bride.”

--Henry Vaughan (1621-1695), Welsh metaphysical poet and physician

Scriptural reference: Luke 12:32-40, Proper 14C

On the Jericho Road

 

Luke 10:25-37

 

 

On the Jericho road his luck ran out.
The air above the beaten track shimmered
and hissed like a snake. One sandal
lay in the center of the road, vanquished—the thieves
had left that, but all else was gone. 
Its forsaken foot curled up into the lip of the ditch,
disembodied. The man laid there,
arms flung wide, like a fledgling who had
fallen to earth; astonishment curtained 
his inert mouth. He floated
in a sea of dust, blood
pooling in tracks from his wounds. A buzzard
clasped a crag, sensing promise.

 

Perhaps the road would bring a savior.

Face toward Jerusalem, the priest 
placed each foot delicately after the other, and then
drew the drape of his robe
across his face at the sight, blanched,
and muttered charms to ward off evil
as he moved to the other side, eyes averted. 
A prayer of thanks rose skyward,
congratulating himself for his own righteousness,
to preserve him from such a fate. So too
the Son of Levi--he clasped his ewer by the handle,
suspicion of ambush and 
contempt seizing his heart like a fist,
edging away on his holy business.

A buzz of flies eddied in his wake.
The buzzard snorted humorlessly 
and shrugged. 
Not long now.

There was no one to see, they thought—
but behind the blue veil of sky
the stars blinked 
and spun in protest.

The sun mounted higher.
A Samaritan approached, 
fresh from shunning by the priest and Levite,
who’d made him walk around them.
But at the sandal he slowed, his donkey
shaking her head, skittish at tang and echo of violence
in her nostrils and ears, at the glare
that glowed off sunburned flesh. 
Her master crouched beside
the discarded sack of a man, 
leaking like a burst wineskin. 
He could still walk away.

 

                                    “Cursed be
the one who leads the blind
on the road astray, or distorts
the justice and mercy owed a stranger,”
the Samaritan murmured.
The donkey breathed the amens.

A trumpet blare of mercy
echoed in his soul’s chamber; the 
walls of the Samaritan’s heart lay in rubble.

With gentle hands he shifted the donkey’s load until
he found wine and oil,
anointing the wounds 
and cooling the stranger’s brow.

Like a mother, tenderly he drew 
the fevered body to his chest, arms beneath 
neck and knee, and raised his neighbor
from ditch to donkey delicately,
claiming the stranger as his brother, 
whose heartbeat was an obligation, whose face
so closely resembled his own,
and only the buzzard turned a baleful eye,
a grudging witness.

--This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 4, 2022.

 

On the Jericho Road

 

On the Jericho road his luck ran out.

The air above the beaten track shimmered
and hissed like a snake. One sandal
lay in the center of the road, vanquished—the thieves
had left that, but all else was gone. 
Its forsaken foot curled up into the lip of the ditch,
disembodied. The man laid there,
arms flung wide, like a fledgling who had
fallen to earth; astonishment curtained 
his inert mouth. He floated
in a sea of dust, blood
pooling in tracks from his wounds. A buzzard
clasped a crag, sensing promise.

 

Perhaps the road would bring a savior.

Face toward Jerusalem, the priest 
placed each foot delicately after the other, and then
drew the drape of his robe
across his face at the sight, blanched,
and muttered charms to ward off evil
as he moved to the other side, eyes averted. 
A prayer of thanks rose skyward,
congratulating himself for his own righteousness,
to preserve him from such a fate. So too
the Son of Levi--he clasped his ewer by the handle,
suspicion of ambush and 
contempt seizing his heart like a fist,
edging away on his holy business.

A buzz of flies eddied in his wake.
The buzzard snorted humorlessly 
and shrugged.

Not long now.

There was no one to see, they thought—
but behind the blue veil of sky
the stars blinked 
and spun in protest.

The sun mounted higher.
A Samaritan approached, 
fresh from shunning by the priest and Levite,
who’d made him walk around them.
But at the sandal he slowed, his donkey
shaking her head, skittish at tang and echo of violence
in her nostrils and ears, at the glare
that glowed off sunburned flesh. 
Her master crouched beside
the discarded sack of a man, 
leaking like a burst wineskin. 
He could still walk away.

 

                                    “Cursed be
the one who leads the blind
on the road astray, or distorts
the justice and mercy owed a stranger,”
the Samaritan murmured.
The donkey breathed the amens.

A trumpet blare of mercy
echoed in his soul’s chamber; the 
walls of the Samaritan's heart lay in rubble.

With gentle hands he shifted the donkey’s load until
he found wine and oil,
anointing the wounds 
and cooling the stranger’s brow.

Like a mother, tenderly he drew 
the fevered body to his chest, arms beneath 
neck and knee, and raised his neighbor
from ditch to donkey delicately,
claiming the stranger as his brother, 
whose heartbeat was an obligation, whose face
so closely resembled his own,
and only the buzzard turned a baleful eye,
a grudging witness.

--Leslie Barnes Scoopmire

Scripture Reference: Luke 10:25-37 (Proper 10C)

Tempted

Mark 1:12–13

Still wet behind the ears, he’s Spirit-pushed
up Jordan’s banks into the wilderness.
Angels hover praying ’round his head.
Animals couch against his knees and ankles
intuiting a better master. The Man
in the middle—new Adam in old Eden—
is up against it, matched with the ancient
Adversary. For forty days and nights
he tests the baptismal blessing and proves to his dismay
the Man is made of sterner stuff than Adam:
the Man will choose to be the Son God made him.

--Eugene H. Peterson (1932-2018), American Presbyterian elder, translator, theologian, and poet

a desert planet

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.


A desert planet....


Once we stood by the clear waters,
knowing who we were,
who the church was and where we were going....
...now we’re in the desert....
...uncharted territory.
...severe and bleak.
...but full of Eastern promise.
...the rules are different.
The old ways don’t work.
...it is a lonely place,
and dangerous.
There are snakes and scorpions.
Alien creatures.
we have been stripped of our illusions
of growth...
of plenty...
and we are in the desert.
waiting...
for God to speak.

Turn these stones into bread.
the instant solution.
the quick fix. If we just…if we just...
change our chairs, change our prayers, fix the roof.
Then everything will be lovely.
Won’t it?

The tempter said. Go on. Turn these stones into bread
bread. like the bread used to be, in the old days...
in a warm hearth in Nazareth.
It was so good then. I can almost smell the yeast.
A quick-fix and they’ll all come back.

But it is written. You can’t live by bread alone.
We need more than that. In this desert planet.

Every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Living God, we need you here, to tell us what to do.
Feed us with your words, we are hungry!
Show us the next step. How to be your church in this
undiscovered world.
As we sit in the sand and try to hear you.

And the tempter said. Look.
Here are all the kingdoms of the world.
I’ll give you all of this. If you just worship me.
Yes. Maybe that would be easier.
Maybe we should give up. And join the others.
Worship at Ikea, religiously.
Or Kylie, or Microsoft, or Visa,
I believe in the Holy Catalog Church.

You can have it all. Worship me.
Everything we’ve ever wanted.
At a price. But that price would be too high.

Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him.
Who else can we turn to.
You’re the one who gives us life.
And though we may we walking in the wilderness.
You are here with us.
Let us glimpse a burning bush somewhere on the way.
This is a lonely planet.

He will command his angels.
They’ll protect you.
You needn’t even stub your toes.
Our attendance is plummeting but we needn’t fear
the angels will catch us.
Someone else will fix it. We’ll leave it up to them.
An evangelist with a funny name, or the parish next-door.
This desert is too difficult. So maybe I’ll just sleep.

Jesus answered the tempter.
Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
Jesus Help us.
Its hard to find the energy. When the sand pushes against us.
When we stumble in the wilderness. When we can’t see the way.
When the old signposts have disappeared
And all we have are sand-dunes.
But we know...
We can’t do a quick-fix
We can’t give up
We can’t leave it to someone else.

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit returned.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
Because he has anointed me.
To bring good news to the poor.
Good news came from out of the desert.
There is good news.
God has brought us here to hear it.
And God will lead us the Promised Land.

--Sue Wallace, found at re-worship blog

Lectionary Link: 1 Lent C, Luke 4:1-13

The Third Temptation: Image from the Book of Kells

 

Here is the commentary from Trinity College's website on the image from the Book of Kells:

"The third Temptation of Jesus (f. 202v) is currently on display in the Old Library. The episode is described later in the narrative, at Luke’s Gospel 4.9–13 (f. 204r), where Satan urges Jesus to throw himself from the roof of the temple in Jerusalem in order to demonstrate that the angels will save him:

‘And [the devil] brought him to Jerusalem and set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself from hence. For it is written that He hath given his angels charge over thee that they keep thee. And that in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering, said to him: It is said: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’

Jesus is represented on a shingle-roofed building which resembles an Irish shrine, with lions as finials. Protected by angels directly above him and in the top corners of the page, he holds out a slender glass vessel, possibly a chalice filled with Eucharistic wine, in response to the small, black winged figure of Satan on the right. Stylized peacocks, symbols of his Resurrection, are placed within the crosses on either side of Jesus.

The image presents many complexities and difficulties of interpretation. The haloed figure with crossed flabella at the centre of the temple may portray Christ as Judge in a Last Judgment scene. The temple and Jesus may represent, in an almost literal manner, the body of the church with Christ as its head, while the human figures – thirteen at the foot of the page and nine to Jesus’ right – seem to represent the faithful of the congregation. It is also possible to read the page as the ground plan of a church with four pillars, showing both side and front elevations. 

The figure of Satan has been disfigured by around twenty small stab marks to the neck, the arms and the torso. This controlled attack, not visible to the naked eye at first glance, seems to have been undertaken at a time when the book was bound, with the knife going through the vellum to previous leaves. The date of this intervention in the life of the Book of Kells is impossible to determine with accuracy, though it may be supposed to have occurred in the middle ages."

Whatever is Foreseen in Joy

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day,

Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we're asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.


--Wendell Berry (1935- ), American poet, essayist, agrarian, philosopher, novelist, and farmer, from This Day: New and Collected Sabbath Poems


Scriptural association: Mark 4: 26-34 (Proper 6B)

Blind Bartimaeus

As Jesus went into Jericho town,
Twas darkness all, from toe to crown,
About blind Bartimeus.
He said, “My eyes are more than dim,
They are no use for seeing him:
No matter-he can see us!”

“Cry out, cry out, blind brother-cry;
Let not salvation dear go by.-
Have mercy, Son of David.”
Though they were blind, they both could hear-
They heard, and cried, and he drew near;
And so the blind were saved.

O Jesus Christ, I am very blind;
Nothing comes through into my mind;
‘Tis well I am not dumb:
Although I see thee not, nor hear,
I cry because thou may’st be near:
O son of Mary, come!

I hear it through the all things blind:
Is it thy voice, so gentle and kind-
“Poor eyes, no more be dim”?
A hand is laid upon mine eyes;
I hear, and hearken, see, and rise;-
‘Tis He! I follow him!

-- George MacDonald (1825-1905), Scots minister, poet, fairy tale writer.

Scripture Reference: Mark 10:46-52, Proper 25 B

Spit and dirt, said the blind man

when he left Christ’s side
himself no more a blind man
since Christ gave him sight.

Men who looked like trees
the first sight he saw.
Only a former blind man
could see us as we are

recognize how rare
specify how far
apart our being
and our seeming are.

What could he do but stare,
blink away the spit and dirt,
watch Christ wipe his hands
on his blinding white shirt?

-- Angela Alaimo O'Donnell, in The Christian Century, 2015

Scripture reference: Mark 10:46-52, Proper 25B

Waking Early Sunday Morning

O to break loose, like the chinook
salmon jumping and falling back,
nosing up to the impossible
stone and bone-crushing waterfall –
raw-jawed, weak-fleshed there, stopped by ten
steps of the roaring ladder, and then
to clear the top on the last try,
alive enough to spawn and die.

Stop, back off. The salmon breaks
water, and now my body wakes
to feel the unpolluted joy
and criminal leisure of a boy –
no rainbow smashing a dry fly
in the white run is free as I,
here squatting like a dragon on
time's hoard before the day's begun!

Fierce, fireless mind, running downhill.
Look up and see the harbor fill:
business as usual in eclipse
goes down to the sea in ships –
wake of refuse, dacron rope,
bound for Bermuda or Good Hope,
all bright before the morning watch
the wine-dark hulls of yawl and ketch.

I watch a glass of water wet
with a fine fuzz of icy sweat,
silvery colors touched with sky,
serene in their neutrality –
yet if I shift, or change my mood,
I see some object made of wood,
background behind it of brown grain,
to darken it, but not to stain.

O that the spirit could remain
tinged but untarnished by its strain!
Better dressed and stacking birch,
or lost with the Faithful at Church –
anywhere, but somewhere else!
And now the new electric bells,
clearly chiming, "Faith of our fathers,"
and now the congregation gathers.

O Bible chopped and crucified
in hymns we hear but do not read,
none of the milder subtleties
of grace or art will sweeten these
stiff quatrains shoveled out four-square –
they sing of peace, and preach despair;
yet they gave darkness some control,
and left a loophole for the soul.

When will we see Him face to face?
Each day, He shines through darker glass.
In this small town where everything
is known, I see His vanishing
emblems, His white spire and flag-
pole sticking out above the fog,
like old white china doorknobs, sad,
slight, useless things to calm the mad.

Hammering military splendor,
top-heavy Goliath in full armor –
little redemption in the mass
liquidations of their brass,
elephant and phalanx moving
with the times and still improving,
when that kingdom hit the crash:
a million foreskins stacked like trash ...

Sing softer! But what if a new
diminuendo brings no true
tenderness, only restlessness,
excess, the hunger for success,
sanity or self-deception
fixed and kicked by reckless caution,
while we listen to the bells –
anywhere, but somewhere else!

O to break loose. All life's grandeur
is something with a girl in summer ...
elated as the President
girdled by his establishment
this Sunday morning, free to chaff
his own thoughts with his bear-cuffed staff,
swimming nude, unbuttoned, sick
of his ghost-written rhetoric!

No weekends for the gods now. Wars
flicker, earth licks its open sores,
fresh breakage, fresh promotions, chance
assassinations, no advance.
Only man thinning out his kind
sounds through the Sabbath noon, the blind
swipe of the pruner and his knife
busy about the tree of life ...

Pity the planet, all joy gone
from this sweet volcanic cone;
peace to our children when they fall
in small war on the heels of small
war – until the end of time
to police the earth, a ghost
orbiting forever lost
in our monotonous sublime.

--Robert Lowell (1917-1977) American poet

Unless a grain of wheat

Oh let me fall as grain to the good earth
And die away from all dry separation,
Die to my sole self, and find new birth
Within that very death, a dark fruition,
Deep in this crowded underground, to learn
The earthy otherness of every other,
To know that nothing is achieved alone
But only where these other fallen gather.

If I bear fruit and break through to bright air,
Then fall upon me with your freeing flail
To shuck this husk and leave me sheer and clear
As heaven-handled Hopkins, that my fall
May be more fruitful and my autumn still
A golden evening where your barns are full.

-- Malcolm Guite (1957- ) English priest, poet, singer-songwriter, musician and theologian

Lectionary link: John 12:20-33, 5th Sunday in Lent B

Lazarus

Now that he's gone
Now the world has moved on 
Since he called my name nothing's the same
As my sister cried He said, "Lazarus rise."
To love and anoint
Or just prove a point

I'm the one that he saved
I'm the one that he raised
From a dark quiet sleep from peace of the grave
I'm the one who owns much but that no one will touch
Mothers see me and cry
Dogs bare teeth as I walk by

I don't see a veil between heaven and hell
The truth is there's nothing but a warm light and singing
But here in-between a voice haunts my dreams
Martha does what she can but won't look at my hands

I'm the one that he saved
I'm the one that he raised
From a dark quiet sleep from peace of the grave
I'm the one who owns much but that no one will touch
Mothers see me and cry
Dogs bare teeth as I walk by

I love the cool mornings
I love a hot meal
The pulse of the street night jasmine and clean sheets 
I can't sleep of rest I feel lost and hard pressed 
I wander these rooms still looking for you 
Now I ought to be grateful to drink from the grail
But I don't be belong on either side of this veil
I look down at my hands that are clasped in my lap
When he left this world I thought he'd take me back...

-- Carrie Newcomer, American singer-songwriter, from the album The Geography of Light

Scripture reference: John 11:1-45, 5th Sunday in Lent 

Raising 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), American poet and translator, son of poet James Wright

Relevant scripture: John 11:1-45