Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts

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