A LENTEN DISCIPLINE: ENRICH YOUR SPIRIT – READ A BOOK FROM THE ST. JAMES LIBRARY
The two contemporary free verse Lenten poems below are from the St. James Library book How the Light Gets In by Brian Doyle. The book is library catalog number POET-1.1. Be the first to check it out.
~John Maloney, Church Librarian
Ash Wednesday
Here’s your Ash Wednesday story.
A mother carries her tiny daughter
With her as she gets ashed and the
Girl, curious and wriggly, squirms
Into the path of the priest’s thumb
Just as the finger is about to arrive
On the mothers forehead, and the
Ashes go right in the kid’s left eye.
She starts to cry, and there’s a split
Second as the priest and the mother
Gawk, and then they both burst out
Laughing. The kid is too little to be
Offended, and the line moves along,
But this stays with me; not the ashy
Eye as much as the instant when all
Could have been pain and awkward
But instead it led to mutual giggling.
We are born of star-dirt and dreams,
And unto this we shall return, that is
The Law, but meantime, by God, we
Can laugh our asses off. What a gift,
You know? Let us snicker while we
Can, brothers and sisters. Let us use
That which makes dark things quail.
Lent
One time I was trying to explain the concept of Lent
To my young twin sons. They were four years old &
Perfect and hilarious and headlong and extraordinary
In their genuineness, you know what I mean? Utterly
Unadorned, no agenda, didn’t know how to lie, eager
For the next minute, but thoughtful, and already both
Reflective, as four-year-olds go; I heard them talking
One evening, in their beds, about their first memories.
But this time we were sprawled in the grass and I said
Well, Lent is a time of stripping away the usual things
And getting back to bones. Some people give up wine,
Or chocolate, or dessert, or television, to try to remind
Themselves that underneath fun is love and work, sort
Of. You know what I mean? No, they did not, and they
Happily spent a while thinking of the stuff they would
Give up, like beets, and brushing their teeth. Then one
Boy stood up and said if he was going to go to Lent he
Would give up clothes, which he then proceeded to do,
Followed by his brother, and they ran around laughing
So hard they no kidding fell down. Something snapped
Awake in me, something broke open. Sometimes there
Is a moment in life when something cuts through murk
And muddle and advice and bombast and opinionating,
Something just slices through all the burble and mutter,
Through the received and ostensible wisdom, the natter
And chatter, and reminds us why we are here. We name
This satori, epiphany, revelation – even this we have to
Find a label for, a handle to begin to understand it – but
It’s not something a word can explain or define, or even
Really hint at, as far as provenance or effect. It happens,
And you see and hear and apprehend it, and we’re agape
And rattled and thrilled and awed. It comes when it does.
You are lucky if it happens once, and blessed if there are
More than one in life. I got one that day on the lawn, yes
I did, and every year when Lent rolls around I remember
That naked lesson, so to speak, about what really matters
In this life – and now, I observe with a smile, so will you.