Ice Wednesday - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Ice Wednesday 2021

 

Many crosses of ice but no ashes

Trees sagging from the icicles dragging

Little birds desperate for last summer’s seeds

The ice ground whitening, whitening, disappearing

 

The power flickers and flickers and fails

And the day is one of lanterns and firewood

Everyone wrapped up in blankets and thoughts

Reading books in glaring blue battery-light

 

The roads are closed, and we are exiled home

Our Lenten ashes are in having no ashes

 

 

“…last summer’s seeds” – I grow sunflowers and in the autumn save the seeds in that famous cool, dry place in paper or cloth, and in addition to commercial chicken scratch feed them to the birds and squirrels throughout the winter.

Ash Wednesday in Libya

Ash Wednesday in Libya

For Anthony Germain

The wisdom of the desert is dispersed
Among the industrial monuments
To mechanized murder, wireless chaos,
And war-porn for touch-screen degenerates.
On this Ash Wednesday night while smoky flares
Obscure, with false, flickering fumes, the stars
God sent to dance above those ancient lands,
You choke and weep among the ashes of
More victims of pale Herod’s shopping trips.
So of your kindness grant that we, your friends,
May wear your ashes for you on this night,
And for the weary innocents who flee
The ashes of their burnt and blasted world.