Each day and night, O God
You greet and welcome tens of thousands,
Souls released from earthly care
And streaming to your arms.

Tens of thousands
Every day and night.

Among them is a little boy
Whose earthly legs should still
Be carrying him gaily
Over a Syrian hill
And not, bedewed with sand,
Searing the convicted conscience
Of the world.

Among them is a trio,
Mother, father, daughter,
Children of music,
Parents each of melody and harmony.
They should still be raising songs
For us.

Among them are more fathers,
Step-fathers,
Mothers,
Step-mothers,
Brothers,
Sisters,
Siblings,
Lovers,
Friends,
Leaders,
Followers,
Acquaintances,
Loved Ones.

Loved by someone here.
Loved before the dawn of time
by You.

Embrace these saints, O God
(If the youngest of them will endure it
Before they race to dance upon the crest
Of heaven’s highest hill).
Embrace we saints, O God,
Who wish we’d had a way to share
For just a little longer
And only dimly see the consolation
You intend for us.

Amen. 

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What if we were meant to fly?

“Fly!” he said. “Don’t let me stop you!
Don’t let anyone stop you!
I’ll strive to keep the curmudgeons
From clipping your wings!
Fly!”

It took a night and morn before I realized
I have felt the icy chill
Of the clipping shears
On my pinion feathers.

And so I wonder: Where to go
To launch, to rise, to soar:
To fly? 

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Easter’s sun rises over Hartford

Happy Resurrection Day, my Lord!
I’ve one more poem-prayer for you
To mark this Lent – though yesterday it ended –
Written at the close of day, not dawn,
For as the sun arose this morn
I had come to worship. 

And then it was a day of driving
And of worship, Lord
(And dinner. I will not deny the dinner).
Two worship services this morning,
Singing high and loud –
The songs of joy for tenors
Tend to go that way – 
Then back into the car to drive
To where my daughter waited for me
At her college library,
Then we’re off to dinner
With the family
(Lots of dinner. I will not deny the dinner).

Hugs and laughter, smiles and stories,
Concern about each others’ health and happiness,
Ignoring yet another silver shower of snow
(On Easter? Really? Yes!)
Beyond the window.

Back into the car, back to college dorm,
Back to home (the snow now turned to rain)
And now, a poem-prayer, just one more,
To bring to close this Lenten litany,
This catalogue of Scriptural reflection,
Contemporary indignation,
Complaints about the weather
(Oh, my: I really did do that a lot.),
Occasional soul-searching,
Some self-congratulation
And some unredemptive condemnation of myself as well,
Leavened, just a bit, I pray 
With spiritual wisdom
Resting there by grace. 

Just one more, and this is done.

What sweet irony, that on this Easter Day,
As I complete this last lyric of Lent,
I recognize that for you,
This Resurrection Day is not an end,
But only the beginning.

Where I lay down this bittersweet
Task of devotion,
You take up anew
The labor to redeem the world.

I praise you, Risen Christ,
For the life you have reclaimed:
The life you have renewed
For all of us.

I praise you, Risen Christ,
For overcoming all the terrors
Of human pride, and sin, and greed,
And even an arrogant poet’s fumbling lines,
To demonstrate once more that when
Love faces evil, in the struggle
Grace will triumph in the end.

I close this poem, this series, and this day
Give me strength to serve tomorrow, I do pray.

Amen. 

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Okay, Jesus, let’s get real.
Well, I’ll get real, or try.
While you’re taking your day off
(Unless preaching to the souls in prison,
Whatever that might mean,
Is a lot of work)
I’ll take your time to ask this question:

How deluded am I?

And in the spectrum of delusion,
Where do mine reside?

I suppose it’s an inevitable conundrum
For anyone who shares my flaws of personality.

My arrogance tells me that what I do is great,
Assures me of the impact of my work,
Persuades me that if given time
(Even insufficient time)
I’ll magically produce great things.

My insecurity is sure
That I aspire to achieve a trifling mediocrity.
If given time, I’ll squander it, distracted,
And only use the last few hours to complete,
Half-finished, rough, and laughable,
What had potential for a thing of beauty –
In someone else’s hands.

My arrogance resents accomplishment in others.
My insecurity expects it, even honors it,
But only to depress my spirit.
Perhaps it’s not accomplishment itself –
I appreciate good work I see –
But recognition more than I receive
(Yes! There it is! It’s jealousy!)
Which I allow to drag me down.

You see the problem, Jesus,
(Better than I, I’m sure):
With my ability to analyze
My own accomplishments so skewed,
So pulled in one direction or the other,
How do I assess myself?
How do I evaluate the world?

Just how deluded am I?

I’d ask you to remove these flaws,
But I told you I was trying to be real,
And we both know that that won’t work.
For one thing, I’d resist.
However lumpy and uneven,
This is the bed my spirit rests in.
Who’d know me if you swept these quirks away?
How would I know myself?

But if you could, still-speaking Jesus,
Thread the needle (worse than saving a rich man)
And find the part of me that’s capable
Of recognizing truth, even about myself,
Raise up reality to hold against the flaws,
To shame the arrogance and
Rectify the insecurity,
Then I should surely weep for joy. 

I hope I’ve made it real this Holy Saturday.
I’ve tried. 

I’m asking, Jesus, for your help
So I can keep it real. 

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It doesn’t take a prophet
To see the future tonight.
The sleep is written clearly
On their eyelids
And their eyes:
Eyes which I only see
In glimpses
As the eyelids flutter
Open. 

Simon and Thaddeus,
James and Bartholomew,
Matthew and Thomas,
Philip and Andrew:
Wait here, awake,
Stay here and pray.
I’ll take these three,
Step over this way,
Stop there and pray.

It doesn’t take a prophet
To know that all eight of them
Will fall asleep.

But James Boanerges,
And John Son of Thunder:
The fire in your souls
Will stifle your yawns,
Will it not?
And Simon, my Rock,
Impulsive, outspoken,
(Too rarely thinking),
Of your fellows unique
For raising objections
When I chart a future
Of failure and death.

But it doesn’t take a prophet
To know they’ll lay their heads down
And even their snores won’t wake them.

Judas, now: he’ll stay awake.

It doesn’t take a prophet
To know where he is,
What he’s doing.

I could read his face at dinner.
He thought he wore a mask,
But the mask betrayed him
Just as surely as he goes
To betray me.

It doesn’t take a prophet
To know what’s coming,
What will happen
To me. 

If they but paid attention, Oh!
They’d stay awake –
Indeed, they’d run.
They will run in an hour.
Peter puts his faith
In his staunch courage
And so say they all,
But just as sleep denies me
The comfort of his prayer tonight
His fear will rise to deny me
Tomorrow.
And so will they all.

It doesn’t take a prophet
To know what’s coming,
What will happen
With them.

It doesn’t take a prophet
To know what’s coming,
What will happen
To me.

Does it take a prophet
To wait here, all alone
Amidst the slumbering
Nascent betrayers,
For the kiss of death?
Some ignorance
Might have been kinder.
There will be others down the years
Who’ll wait for death
And torture’s visitation:
Ten of these, in fact.

It doesn’t take a prophet
To know what’s coming,
Or
To endure what’s coming.

It takes a prophet to take comfort
In what lies beyond what’s coming,
To see the strength and courage
Of these sleeping men,
To hope for victory beyond defeat,
To see new life upon the farther shore
Of death.

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The people love him, and he’s bested us
At every argument (because he did?),
So we can see the trembling applecart
Which threatens to spill blood, not fruit, to drain
Into the Kidron Brook. He’s made us look
Like fools – the mocking laughter echoes still.
Where learning fails, then money may suffice
To rid us of this meddling carpenter.
We need a time and place to seize him, out
Of sight of crowds which might take arms and launch
The war which will destroy not only them
But us, the city, and the nation. Make
This one obscure and soon forgotten man
The sacrifice who saves the world we know.
So open up the treasury, and see
What we might offer one of his close friends
To tell us when, and where, and who he is
(Those guards pay no attention; they won’t know).
Six stacks of silver, thirty coins in all:
Yes, this may do; yes, this may serve to coax
Betrayal from a disappointed friend.

Those last two coins? The small ones? Put them back.
They only speak of humble poverty.
We deal with sacrifices and with grand
Designs; it is not fit that we should so
Betray our desperation by a pair
Of copper mites – nor does a Nazarene,
No matter how he troubles us, command
A bounty made of gold. This price will serve.
We hardly dare to hope that we will find
Our agent soon, but search we must. Let’s pray
We have our opportunity, and seize
Our carpenter, before the festival
Gets fully under way. Tomorrow night
Is much too soon to hope for and almost
Too late to make our sacrifice to Rome
Before its wrath erupts in fire and blood.

A quiet trial on this Thursday would
Ensure a Friday we will count as good.
 

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