Friday, March 23, 2007

Lent, Easter, Poetry

After approximately four decades of living as some combination of pagan, atheist, and agnostic, I became a Catholic in 2000. It was an interesting process, and remains so, some seven years later. I never have a good answer for people who ask we why I converted; the changes in my particular case were several. They came as a result of illness, aging, reading, and observing; and not least of all, also as a result of mystery. I've written a few religious poems over the years, although I use "religious" here loosely. The Lenten and Easter seasons may be the most appealing, difficult, and mysterious ones for poets who are Christians, or Christians who are poets. Here is a very famous Easter poem by the 17th Century English poet George Herbert:


Easter Wings


Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.


My tender age in sorrow did beginne
And still with sicknesses and shame.
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With thee
Let me combine,
And feel thy victorie:
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.


Here is an immeasurably less famous poem related to Easter. If memory serves, I wrote it about three years ago:


Broken, Amazing, Awful


Everything is broken.

Everything is amazing.

A lot of it is awful.


Among others, Jesus,

who certainly put himself

among others, had a fine


sense, one senses, of

broken, amazing, and awful.

Lawfully wedded to a human


condition, he performed

his rendition of grace. It was

amazing. They broke him.


That was awful.


© 2007





an in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:5
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.10

My tender age in sorrow did beginne:
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.15
With thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day thy victorie:
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.20

1 comment:

Saints and Spinners said...

I became Catholic in 2002 after growing up with a mixture of religious Mennonite and athiest Jewish (Anne Lamott says there are "Moses Jews" and "Bagel Jews"-- my father's side of the family was definitely the latter). Whenever people ask me about why I chose to become Catholic, I respond that it's a discussion best for a bottle of wine or lots and lots of coffee. I.e., it's not a question I can answer casually. For me, there's definitely a yearning for the mystical in the Divine. I found it in Rome, and miss it in these United States.