Holy Saturday Streets

Inside me

Are the streets of Jerusalem.

Sun on the old stone stairways

And the baking air.



Inside me

Are the high walls and the tumbling flowers,

Vivid as a clarion call in a net of leaves,

Red and pink in the thorns and prickles.


Even the plants must arm themselves

Against the night and the harsh demands of day

And yet it is always the sunshine that persists,

Delights my inner eye.


I feel the peace of Sabbath streets

Within me


The Jewish Quarter vertical with praise.

The men are hurrying to meet the Bride.

They circle with a dance of joy by the Temple wall

As the night falls

It is already night when joy begins

The Sabbath is at hand and a beautifying surplus of soul

Visits our mortal bones and lingers on.


A light of resurrection

A climate of unchangeable joy

And I rejoice in the springing up

Of the eternal tale.


He walked and spoke and lived

He died and lived again


These streets bear testament to His being here.


The Bells of the Triduum ring.

We hurry to the Russian church.

The tapering candles held

To the glimmering faces of the radiant saints.

The choir from Moscow sings

Deep-throated harmonies at the very gates of hell.


These Christ has touched by His all Perfect Presence

His all-emptying Praise.

Obedience calls him to so great, so vast, to such abysmal fall

Descent

And yet a royal progress through the chaos of the soul

Man’s soul and deeds since sin first entered in,

Commenced its tearing and dismembering work, enacted by the hands of men.


He walks there now

A world more vast than all the earth’s globe utterly destroyed

And still he has no power to ascend


He walks and powerless he waits

Till there alone the Easter dawn appears.


A flake of light

As gentle as a solitary leaf

Falls like a kiss upon the metal hell of death


A forest full of leaves of light blow in like a rivening flame

The second chaos soars with hope

Breaks forth with a roar of joy



Who is this King of Glory?

O, lift Higher Ancient Doors!

And let Him enter, Who has come

To claim and take us home!




Sarah de Nordwall February 21st 2013

A Line becomes Alarmed

Who’s this sphere
Who’s bounced into our world of lines,
Pushing us around?

We don’t like round
And we don’t like pushed.

What’s this plane rushing by?
She says it’s a circle
But I don’t see the point.
Well actually I only see a point,
Being a line.

How can a point
Take up so much room?
I mean, what does she mean by curved space
When there’s only A to B
Eternally?

Why is she always slipping out of view
And round the bend?
Where will it end?
She says there’s even more than circles,
None of which I’ve seen,
But also ‘up’
A thing I can’t imagine.

I prefer my single point
Into which I push myself forward
And become a line

Aligned entirely with others
In parallel
Whom I need not touch

As we all rush forwards
Without her
Crashing in on the super highway
Of my own singular express.

I stress
I don’t need a ball
At all.

She’s out of limits
Does not fit
into my mind or into any world that I accept
And yet,
as I move, I sense the presence of a great expanse
Of empty space through which she moves
on every side.

Our Lady of Sorrows

Blessed Mother,


You knew

not only how to carry

your own deep sorrows with dignity

but to make room

to hold the sorrows of another.


You were not afraid

of annihilation


Not alarmed

by a fresh dismemberment.


You were the centrifugal force

of love

that holds the accelerating universe

in a wide offering

of ever-expanding joy

amidst the pain.


You are not destroyed.


Wholly identified

with the four directions of the Holy Cross

there is no place your passion does not reach

because you stand with Him.


And we who dare

in microscopic measures

to accept the task


desire to stand

in fresh alignment

with the one who chose


to receive

Everything.



Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, 15th September 2012