Poet’s Page ~ April 2009

Even as the season of Lent continues, so I continue to share poems I have written about this special season. As I write this page, we are coming upon Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter. The following poems speak to what these days mean to me.

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday…
Such an ordinary name for such an extraordinary day.

Palm Sunday…
The day he made it plain that who he was,
was real
and not to be denied.

Palm Sunday…
The day he set into motion the wheel
that would carry him through
crucifixion… and beyond.

Palm Sunday…
Another day of being
alone in the middle of a crowd ~
surrounded and
surrendered.


Good Friday

This day is called “good” and yet it honors
events that are hard to understand.

This day remembers how he walked on,
as he faced what lay before him
and knew it for what it was.

This day remembers how he wept, but did not waver,
how he finished all that he had begun.

This day is about asking and agony,
this day is about mystery and the awful clarity
that is, in itself,
a light in the darkness.

This day is about love.


Easter

Childhood memories
of colored eggs and pretty bonnets
seem so far removed from what
the day was truly all about.

Songs of praise and adoration
come closer, perhaps, to the meaning
of that early first day of the week
with its empty tomb and scattered believers.

Perhaps if we are to catch a glimpse
of that long-ago morning in that faraway place,
and even touch its meaning,
we need only to look and see
the ways it changed
the world.

jbm