Passion Play
Act Four
He is arisen now
Who caused the rising
Disciples will say the
Spirit of God breathed
Into his body once
Again
So that he might walk
Upon a mortal land
To testify
And heal
And more simply to
Take meals with friends
“Nothing mattered now.”
After Aslan is slain in
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
by C. S. Lewis
Unseen
Christ is dead
Not now but long ago
And on the full day in between
(Counting days on calendars)
When the body lay in Joseph’s
Tomb, the movement sleeps
As well
Nightmares of capture
And, worse, hopelessness
It is a time for cynical
Reasoning among the
Followers
J. R. R. Reading Day
25 March
(Not that there’s anything to
Mind, but)
How was this decided?
What happens in the story
To commemorate?
What’s in the lore?
Having a day made right
For reading about rings
Or the Silmarils
Or ships retiring west to
Middle-Earth’s Elysian
Shores—or imposing corsairs
Creasing through southern
Waters
All this is good
If a day to be celebratory
Even better
An excuse to wake up our
Hobbit aspects and have
Bilbo’s birthday party, after
Reading, under the great
Shire tree
Not having to wait
‘Til 22 September
When we can make the party
More fantasy
Officially
Again
Parting Storm
(Good Friday,
while rain falls)
Tempests of dread
Over waves or
Maybe upon towns
Or fields or where
Any once had met
Storms have many parts
Forget the question if
It makes a sound where
There is no one to hear:
Storm sounds
(Makes noise,
Goes deep)
From the first
Crashing, splitting, thieving
Maddening descent
Of all the elements
Calling for chorus
And rebuke
Within or under
Land and water, as if
Newly and terribly alive, and
Where both converge
In savage contested
Bordering
Dying sets in, life strives
Against
Waking day of uncertain
Force, fearing that
Maybe faith no longer
Holds
Falling with night
Je Suis Brussels
Capital of Belgium
A capital of the European Union
Now where we grieve
What else should an explosion do
But separate the living from
The active earth
The bombings are insane against
The rights of nature
The bombers invested in
Warped thinking about how the
World changes, since most
Of us will crystallize in
Opposition to the cause
We will mourn and pray
And, right or wrong, fight back
world warring
the President goes
to Cuba with needful
cause death toll in
Syria increases from
Russian airstrikes so
goes the claim
North Korea via
Its leadership strives
to move to the front
row of the nuclear
theatre Saudi Arabia
executes students
dissidents and (who
knows) POWs they
are held all over Asia
and in parts
of Africa I say
parenthetically
because too many
do not see we are
a warring world
nations at nations
forces inside
and in between
diplomacy cannot
fail or the impulse
to adapt all our
propensities still in
keeping Edenic
promises making
eccentric community
in spite all the chaos
at Babel
maybe a surprise
that we can tilt
and keep our planet
toward the good
Burnt Cabins,
Pennsylvania
We’ve suffered
A local tragedy
That might never
Be explained
Even if a reason’s
Given
We have a super
Highway—yes,
America’s
First “super
Highway”—that
Is the Pennsylvania
Turnpike, and
A retired trooper
Of the state
Police tried a
Robbery at one
Of the stations
There
Between small
Towns in the
Allegheny Mountains,
Two workers
Are taken, held
By his gun,
Until the truck
Arrives to gather
Monies from the
Turnpike tolls
The theft occurs
And fails, the
Captives shot
And killed; the
Officer-now-
Suspect is killed,
Too
Serving troopers
Prepared and
assigned, had
Arrived to restore
An aberrant,
Criminal scene
Back to ordinary
Nothing ordinary
Anymore here:
With tears, the
Deaths are told
Each word
Sounding like
The heavy note
Of a mourning
Bell
Sadness ringed
Round sadness,
As voices split
To tell
It will be a
Story of
Transgression
And the sorrow
Brought to many
Kinds of
Families, and
It might pass
From focused
Attention
But here was a
Neighbor tragedy
On persons who
Will not
Appear in their
Expected places
At work or at
Home
And others living
Who will never
Be the same
A chance for
Money maybe
Too easy a
Reason for all
That befell
Close by—I
Tend to believe
Something else
About surrendering
Life happened
Here
Last Winter Sun
The sun is wan today,
A last winter sun
Spring has been promised
Through the weather
Turns so far
And parochial nature
Will not disappoint
A tiding of her own
New days come forth
In warming days up north
Passion Play
1
Today we wave palms
Or not—some churches
Seem to wait—in an
Enactment, a kind of
Remembrance
Passion starts, a brief
Season of
Intimacy overthrown,
Though given first by
The hand of God through
Child, prophet, and
Teacher
One who was three
On Thursday, many
Christians will recall:
He names adherents
No longer only followers
But now as friends
Goes to prayer, Son of
Us, before taken away
2
Carried with will toward
Interrogation, torture
Final testimony that
Renders him seditious
To the crowd, numbered
Of all the world we
Knew
Beaten and burdened
With his means of execution
He is taken on the way
With escort disciplined
Through a mob that,
More and more, loses its
Human shape and
Recognition
We mock, refute, then
Pierce his skin to leave
Him, a criminal, dying
With due scorn upon an
Iron tree
3
We wave palms,
Festive and endearing,
A likable rite that we
Prepare
Later in the week we
Wrap his wounds in
Bearing our bound
Innocence into a tomb
Beside which stands
A stone door carved
With the world’s skill
Ready to be shut against
All consequence
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