salvator mundi: via crucis - denise levertov

Maybe He looked indeed
much as Rembrandt envisioned Him
in those small heads that seem in fact
portraits of more than a model.
A dark, still young, very intelligent face,
a soul-mirror gaze of deep understanding, unjudging.
That face, in extremis, would have clenched its teeth
in a grimace not shown in even the great crucifixions.
The burden of humanness (I begin to see) exacted from Him
that He taste also the humiliation of dread,
cold sweat of wanting to let the whole thing go,
like any mortal hero out of his depth,
like anyone who has taken a step too far
and wants herself back.
The painters, even the greatest, don't show how,
in the midnight Garden,
or staggering uphill under the wieght of the Cross,
He went through with even the human longing
to simply cease, to not be.
Not torture of body,
not the hideous betrayals humans commit
nor the faithless weakness of friends (not then, in agony's grip)
was the Incarnation's heaviest weight,
but this sickened desire to renege,
to step back from what He, Who was God,
had promised Himself, and had entered
time and flesh to enact.
Sublime acceptance, to be absolute, had to have welled
up from those depths where purpose
drifted for mortal moments.

Levertov, Denise. "Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis" Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry. David Impastato, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 321.

good friday

a recuperation of sin: scott cairns

I suppose we might do away with words like sin.
They are at least archaic, not to mention rude,
and late generations have been pretty well schooled

against the presumption of holding anything
to be absolutely so, universally
applicable, especially anything like

sin which is, to put it more neatly, unpleasant,
not the sort of thing one brings up. Besides, so much
of what ignorance may have once attributed

to sin has been more justly shown to be the end
result of bad information, genetic flaw,
or, most often, an honest misunderstanding.

And I suppose sin's old usefulness may have paled
somewhat through many centuries of overuse
by corrupt clergy pointing fingers, by faithless

men and women who have longed more than anything
for a more rigid tyranny over their wives
and husbands, over their somnabulant children.

In fact, we could probably forget the idea
of sin altogether if it were not for those
periodic eruptions one is quite likely

to picture in the papers, or on the TV -
troubling episodes in which, inexplicably,
some giddy power rises up to occasion

once more the spectacle of the innocent's blood.

Cairns, Scott. "A Recuperation of Sin" Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry. David Impastato, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 173.

(from) manifesto: the mad farmer liberation front - wendell berry

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequioas....
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts....
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
To what is nighest in your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wring direction.
Practice resurrection.

Berry, Wendell. from "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry. David Impastato, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 160.

what my teachers taught me i try to teach my students: maura eichner

A bird in the hand
is not to be desired.
In writing, nothing
is too much trouble.
Culture is nourished, not
by fact, but by myth.
Continually think of those
who were truly great
who in their lives fought
for life, who wore
at their hearts, the fire's
center. Feel the meanings
the words hide. Make routine
a stimulus. Remember
it can cease. Forge
hosannahs from doubt.
Hammer on doors with the heart.
All occasions invite God's
mercies and all times
are his seasons.

Eichner, Maura. "What My Teachers Taught Me I Try to Teach My Students" Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry. David Impastato, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 162-163.