I can write of them,
and offer what
is given to me to offer.
I can take them
with me through the day,
lugging them through
each hour—
each liturgy,
each carefully planned and prepared Eucharist.
But this one is different.
This name I know
like I know my own name.
And it is this I send up—
up, where the incense
hangs in long, draping ribbons
slowly twisting toward the entrance
as ghosts do,
making their way
not toward light
but toward more shadows.
Let us swing the thurbile
and let us obscure
the details with smoke,
with fragrance and gray mist.
And then let us step forward
into it. Do not let the haze
part for us
but let it envelope us
and make us one with it
as we are one
with each other.
Procession
Before the high altar—
beside the tall white Pascal candle—
beneath the gold striped urn pall
and clouds of incense
that sway and circle into
blossoms and ivys of smoke,
lies all that needs to remain.
There, earth
for the earth.
And what doesn’t remain here
has fled. What hasn’t
been sifted into the container
now sings. It sings
as the choir does, singing
words so ancient they must be true.
Resurrection—
sung into the thick air of the nave
as all our hymns are
Life—
rising like incense toward
the tall, angular glass
primsed with the colors of abalone.
What has escaped
is prayed for and commended
to a place from which
one might very well be able to see
what goes on before,
if one is able.
What remains is blessed
with incense
and water purified
by salt and prayer.
And so it is.
And so, we go forth,
apprehensive
but sure.
Kyrie
Mercy, I say.
Mercy,
as the monks
in the sketes on Athos prayed,
fingering their
komboskinis
in that blissful solitude
which exists
only there, above
the distant
Aegean.
Yes, eleison
as though
it will change
what has happened
and I will be lifted
from this
overwhelming moment.
Yet, not mercy
for me.
And certainly not for
him—
who no longer needs it,
who never needed it.
At this stage—
overwhelmed by all
that has been done—
can I even ask? It’s done.
I know it
and I can’t change
a thing. If I could
I would maybe
ask for just
one more day—
for one more moment
in which he and I will
drive again together
toward some western place once more
where the long afternoon
will never end.
Job knew
Job knew how the morning stars
sang together and how all
the children shouted some days for joy.
A voice
spoke to him
out of the storm that rages
from eternity to eternity.
The voice said:
I made the cloud the garment thereof,
and thick darkness a swaddling-band for you,
Hitherto shalt thou come but no further;
and here shalt thy proud waves be stayed,
Every September, we will
read these words
and know them. We will
believe them
as we believe most of it—
ciphoned and strained,
picking out what works for us
and discarding the rest
as archaic.
As we do
we know—in our very core—
what it means when
the voice
says to Job:
Who can number the clouds in wisdom?
Who can stay the bottles of heaven?
And now,
when we visit the grave,
when we go to lay on his engraved name
the flowers we bought,
choosing colors with purpose,
we echo those sacred words
made even more sacred
by the pains we bring with us,
by the sad loss we lug to that place
made heavier as we return to our car.
Your dust groweth, we intone as we go
into hardness
and the clods cleave fast together.
Psalm
(Paul Celan)
Who formed us from earth and clay?
Who disturbed our dust?
No One.
I praise You, No One.
See how—
for Your sake—
we flower.
Toward
You.
We once were, still are,
shall always be
nothing—
blooming—
Your rose,
No One.
Our pistils are
the color of a soul,
our stamen is
shredded
by some vague
heaven.
Our corolla is bloody,
singing one red word—
thorn,—
over
and over.
Descent
“. . . he went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey.”
1 Peter 3.19
(Rilke)
Seduced, finally, he fled
that pale, thin body and all the suffering
it endured. Up, he went. He put it all
behind him. Even the darkness was afraid
and hurled winged bats at that
blood-drained body lying there.
At night, dread surged
in the veins and membranes of their wings,
wings that fluttered
and twitched in remembrance
of that pain which lies
with the body—both of them
dead and cold.
Even the very air darkened
and felt sorrow for this flesh.
In the night, the dark animals—
driven by the m
oon—
wailed
and went stupid with grief.
Maybe his freed spirit
meant to wander about
in the bare-lit countryside,
moving and doing as shadows do
at night. What he suffered
was enough. What
moved in the night—
these shadowy figures—
were gentle to him
and he, in turn, longed
to embrace them
as a room embraces mourners.
Beneath it all, the earth—
thirsty after draining his wounds—
cracked and split open.
In the abyss, a voice
cried out. No stranger
to anguish, he heard
and understood
that hell howled for him
to finish what
began with his first
movement of pain, hoping
their pain would end
when his finally did.
Still, the fear of pain reigned
for the moment. Down, his spirit
plummeted, weighed
by exhaustion. And there,
he walked impatiently
through the rain of amazed expressions
from those sighing shadows
who stood about, shocked.
Among them, he set
his gaze upon that first man of the earth.
He ran! his stride taking him
deeper. There, he was swallowed
by the darkness. He then reappeared,
only to be swallowed once more,
this time into the wreckage of the deepest places.
Finally, up he went, up
over the voices pouring out
as he climbed. With them,
hands grasped in his hands, through
the sounds and sights, he rose
toward that sturdy place
of his lying down. There,
not breathing or blinking,
he stood up without support,
owning all anguish. Silent.
Troubled
(John 14)
How can our hearts
be troubled? How
can they be filled
this whole, long
afternoon with grief
and loss? We have lost
nothing. We have only
gained. We only
need the reminder—
mansions await us.
They exist
in a place where
only light
ascends, without
ever a descent
again. What is
prepared for us
will never be
taken from us.
And there,
all that has
happened before,
will be remembered
as we remember
those dreams
we tell ourselves
we should write down
on awakening
but never do.
Credo
Who cares what it is I believe.
It’s what we have learned—
what we profess
not with our lips
but in our lives.
When we come together
to profess this faith,
we know it
but we don’t say it arrogantly, or with pride.
The one who hears us
doesn’t expect us to shout.
This quiet half-mumble
is enough.
And death?
We’ve seen it.
It came to us all
one early autumn morning.
It tore into our lives
unnoticed the night before—
shattering our complacency,
startling us from
our safe, hard-working
hard-praying
hard-playing lives.
We know death.
And we know
what it holds for us
and for those who are
taken from us.
We believe that what
we put into the ground
won’t stay there.
Just don’t ask us how
or why.
Just let us do
what we have to do
and let us hope in
what we have to hope in.
Anamnesis
Let’s remember
our meals—
the breads
and starches
we shared—
here at this
table. But
I’ve forgotten already
his grace—
the words
of gratitude
he recited at each meal
sending them upward
in that familiar formula
even as I—
forgetful and headstrong—
sat by,
unable
to acknowledge
whatever graces
he sang.
Let me remember
his grace. Let the words
come back
as simply as this Presence
I call down
onto this table,
into these
simple elements
we eat
and drink
and share together.
Epiclesis
“As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins
Let us call down
the bird—
not the dove
they etched
in stained glass
high on the chapel wall,
but the kingfisher
Hopkins imagined.
Let us call down the kingfisher—
the same one
he—the one we mourn—
saw rise and fall
from his window
in the kitchen
each morning
or the one
he intended
to feed
when he poured out
the seed into
the feeder
as though
offering it to
the Spirit who flew
toward him
through the thin
morning mist
that last day.
Sanctus
Unlike one aunt
who caught the Spirit,
was born again and spoke
in tongues, we couldn’t
praise that way.
Holiness, for us,
is something subdued.
It came up from
within us slowly
and made us
quiet with contentment
rather than shout for joy.
This was the other extreme
to the depths we went into
in those long cold nights afterward.
From that despair that made us
bite the insides of our mouths
to the fist-clenching exuberance
we found bubbling up
from within us,
we knew—
in no articulate way—
it was somehow
going to be all right . . .
or at least as close to it
as possible.
Fraction
We don’t make it through life
without our bodies
being broken
and shattered.
This is
quite simply
the way it is.
It’s our nature—
to lie here
like this bread.
To be truly who we are
we need to break ourselves
open, cracking
ourselves
into pieces
to emerge
fully
into a wonderful
wholeness
we have—
until that moment—
found so elusive.
Agnes Dei
“Where the lamb died
a bird sings.”
—R.S. Thomas
The lamb dies
easily—
as though
it was meant to—
born
for shed blood
and broken flesh.
We’re all born
like this—
for a single
bloody moment
in which we are
asked to give
of ourselves—
of what we
have been given