A Sequence of Poems for Holy Week

Lawrence Hall

mhall46184@aol.com

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Sequence of Poems for Holy Week

 

(Some of these were submitted in past years)

 

Holy Thursday 2017

 

On this Maundatum Thursday falls a bomb

From the belly of a beast, falling, falling

From the Empyrean and through the blue

Past mountaintops and misted valleys deep

 

And then into the planet’s earthen flanks

Its pulses to repudiate Creation

In vaporizing the structures of life

Into primeval molecules of dust

 

Because some bad men might be lurking there

On this Maundatum Thursday falls a bomb

 

 

 

Maundy Thursday – Mass of the Last Supper

 

“Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang”

 

-Shakespeare

 

The air is thurified – the incense given

Our Lord upon His birth is fumed at last;

The censer’s chains, clanking like manacles

Offend against the silence at the end of Mass

 

Supper is concluded; the servants strip

The Table bare of all the Seder service:

Cups, linens, and dishes, leaving in the dark

An Altar bare, prepared for sacrifice

 

In Gethsemane the flowered air is sweet

But iron-heeled caligae offend the night

 

 

 

6 April 2012, Good Friday

 

A Night of Fallen Nothingness

 

The Altar stripped, the candles dark, the Cross

Concealed behind a purple shroud, the sun

Mere slantings through an afternoon of grief

While all the world is emptied of all hope.

The dead remain, the failing light withdraws

As do the broken faithful, silently,

Into a night of fallen nothingness.

 

 

 

7 April 2012, Holy Saturday

 

Easter Vigil, Sort Of

 

A vigil, no, simply quiet reflection

Minutes before midnight, with all asleep

Little Liesl-Dog perhaps dreams of squirrels,

For she has chased and barked them all the day;

The kittens are disposed with their mother

After an hour of kitty-baby-talk,

Adored by all, except by Calvin-Cat,

That venerable, cranky old orange hair-ball,

Who resents youthful intrusion upon

His proper role as object of worship.

All the house settles in for the spring night,

Anticipating Easter, early Mass,

And then the appropriately pagan

Merriments of chocolates and colored eggs

And children with baskets squealing for more

As children should, in the springtime of life.

 

 

 

Easter, 2014

 

Christos Voskrese!

 

For William Tod Mixson

 

The world is unusually quiet this dawn

With fading stars withdrawing in good grace

And drowsy, dreaming sunflowers, dewy-drooped,

Their golden crowns all motionless and still,

Stand patiently in their ordered garden rows,

Almost as if they wait for lazy bees

To wake and work, and so begin the day.

A solitary swallow sweeps the sky;

An early finch proclaims his leafy seat

While Old Kashtanka limps around the yard

Snuffling the boundaries on her morning patrol.

 

Then wide-yawning Mikhail, happily barefoot,

A lump of bread for nibbling in one hand,

A birch switch swishing menace in the other

Appears, and whistles up his father’s cows:

“Hey!  Alina, and Antonina! Up!

Up, up, Diana and Dominika!

You, too, Varvara and Valentina!

Pashka is here, and dawn, and spring, and life!”

And they are not reluctant then to rise

From sweet and grassy beds, with udders full,

Cow-gossip-lowing to the dairy barn.

 

Anastasia lights the ikon lamp

And crosses herself as her mother taught.

She’ll brew the tea, the strong black wake-up tea,

And think about that naughty, handsome Yuri

Who winked at her during the Liturgy

On the holiest midnight of the year.

O pray that watchful Father did not see!

Breakfast will be merry, an echo-feast

Of last night’s eggs, pysanky, sausage, kulich.

And Mother will pack Babushka’s basket,

Because only a mother can do that right

 

When Father Vasily arrived last night

In a limping Lada haloed in smoke,

The men put out their cigarettes and helped

With every precious vestment, cope, and chain,

For old Saint Basil’s has not its own priest,

Not since the Czar, and Seraphim-Diveyevo

From time to time, for weddings, holy days,

Funerals, supplies the needs of the parish,

Often with Father Vasily (whose mother

Begins most conversations with “My son,

The priest.…”), much to the amusement of all.

 

Voices fell, temperatures fell, darkness fell

And stars hovered low over the silent fields,

Dark larches, parking lots, and tractor sheds.

Inside the lightless church the priest began

The ancient prayers of desolate emptiness

To which the faithful whispered in reply,

Unworthy mourners at the Garden tomb,

Spiraling deeper and deeper in grief

Until that Word, by Saint Mary Magdalene

Revealed, with candles, hymns, and midnight bells

Spoke light and life to poor but hopeful souls.

 

The world is unusually quiet this dawn;

The sun is new-lamb warm upon creation,      

For Pascha gently rests upon the earth,

This holy Russia, whose martyrs and saints

Enlighten the nations through their witness of faith,

Mercy, blessings, penance, and prayer eternal

Now rising with a resurrection hymn,

And even needful chores are liturgies:

“Christos Voskrese  – Christ is risen indeed!”

And Old Kashtanka limps around the yard

Snuffling the boundaries on her morning patrol.