A Clarity in Gray: a Poem for Ash Wednesday

Gray winter day, and the shapes

and contours of my world, my life,

so vague and undefined.

*

Yet, among the trees,

a certain clarity in all the gray;

each undressed branch, each twig,

often overlooked in shimmer

of a winter sun, shining now in stark

relief against this leaden sky.

*

Ash Wednesday, and my soul undressed

beneath the thumb that marks an ashy

cross upon my brow,

ash that tells me I am dust,

to dust I will return,

alone.

*

I kneel and do the only thing I know to do,

entrust my dustiness to arms of mercy stark

and stretched so long ago upon a barren tree

on a day as gray, as gray

as any day has ever been;

alone, but not alone;

there is a clarity in gray.

 

 

Late Summer Afternoon

 

The air is leaden, thick, and

shadows creep across my silent deck;

the sun arcs slowly toward the west,

the moon, a tiny splinter in the haze of blue,

whispers the dark of coming night; rusty

leaves hang limp, the birds are hushed;

I sit alone, swallowed in the empty vastness

spread across my tiny deck.   

*

A gentle cooing sudden lifts the heavy air;

my eyes look up, and there she sits,

a mourning dove atop the rail, stretching  

her silky neck this way and that; she holds

my gaze, her eye attentive, pensive,

soft; then stretching yet again towards me

across the brooding silence of the day,

she coos once more and lays a gentle

peace, a quiet kindness in my soul

before she softly flows into the endless

hours of this late summer afternoon.

A Craggy-faced Christ

          A craggy-faced Christ.  Not exactly the image of Christ with which I grew up.  The Christ of my Sunday School pictures and church wall hangings had quite a different face, a gentle face, a kindly face.  Granted that face was very much a handsome Caucasian face, and not a first-century Jewish face, but there was a certain sweetness, a certain tenderness about that Christ. 

          This craggy-faced Christ is so very different.  This Christ stepped right out of Isaiah 53:3.  He is truly a Christ “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (KJV).  He knows about life.  About its hardships.  About its pain. 

          This Christ is part of a beautiful wood-carving of the Last Supper that our daughter gave to us, a gift from her trip to Croatia a few years ago.

          In this carving, this very craggy-faced Christ sits in the midst of his disciples.  And as this Christ holds out his two burly arms, his hands are clenched around two chunks of bread.  “My body,” he says, knowing full well that his body was soon to be broken for them.   

          And for us.  There’s certainly a place for a smiling, gentle Christ on the picture-walls of our minds.  I like to imagine such a Christ laughing and playfully joining with us in all the fun adventures of our lives.  Like to imagine him dancing through our joyful days.  Like to imagine him sipping a cup of tea with me from time to time. 

          But there are times, many times, when I need and when I can relate more easily to this craggy-faced Christ from the Croatian wood-carving.  This is a Christ who speaks the language of loneliness.  A Christ who knows my deepest sorrows.  Who knows the sorrows of our broken world.  Who knows the pain and fear of refugees.  A Christ who weeps for the chaos and loss when guns tear lives apart in our country and in countries around the world.  Who aches with children and women and men whose lives are curtailed by illness, by hunger, by poverty, by war, by discrimination. 

          This craggy-faced Christ will never offer trite platitudes to ease the pain that so often intrudes into our lives and into our world.  Instead, this Christ offers us the bread of his body broken for us.  Broken on what seemed at the time a God-forsaken cross.  Broken in his descent to hell before God raised him to new life from the darkness of the tomb. 

          This bread is a precious gift.  It’s bread that offers us a measure of peace.  Bread that gives us hope.  Bread that strengthens us.  Bread that keeps us ever in God’s grace.

 

Autumn Dusk

Something almost holy

about the dusk of autumn;

as colors darken gradually,

a stillness haunts the air;

everything so alone in the

vastness of the deepening dark;

yet, from somewhere, a tenderness

touches my face, a sweetness,

a kindness, a gentle sadness,

a shadowy peace.