For all gave out of their abundance, but she—out of her poverty—gave all that she was having, her whole life. – Mark 12:44, translation by D. Mark Davis.
You’d warned about them, Jesus, all those who
devour widows’ houses with religious obligation.
I wonder, did you think you’d see it happen
there in front of you, so poignant and so soon?
She dropped her life into the box or jar
and heard it ring, so tinny and so small.
I wonder that you found the words
to say to your disciples “She gave all.
She gave her life, all that remained.”
I would have been struck silent in my tears.
A poem/prayer based on Mark 12:38-44, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 27 (32).
I have written two other poems on this text: “Devoured” from 2021 and “All She Gave” from 2018.
The image is from JESUS MAFA. The Widow’s Mite, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48392 [retrieved November 5, 2024]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).
ordainedgeek 
It is a passage that tugs at my heart and your poem today is so poignant.
Thank you, Maren. Unusually, I went back to see what I’d written on this text before, and found the two poems that I linked. I wondered if I had it in me to write something new. Thank you for for affirming that.