The Sacred Heart
Infinite, eternal,
almighty qualities forestalled
the hint of tenderness
in a being
whose hands held such magnitude
that mercy seemed squeezed to stone,
until a baby cried in tender sobs
and registered an infant’s gentle love.
Corpus Christi
Ascending,
his body fell away,
retaining shades
too light to sway a scale
or cast a shadow,
with sacramental weight
that only the mind of living faith
could measure.
Holy Trinity
Dunked beneath the piled up waves
of Jordan’s pilgrim water
a rabbi unshackled by sin
submitted to the ranks of the sinful and halt
who longed to see the face of God
without the screen of tears,
like the river’s splashes,
too murky to check the bottoms
of life flowing by,
too fast for answers of lasting life.
Pentecost 2015
He left us,
and so we locked the doors with double bars,
but not our hearts.
The tomb was layered in darkness,
like a bed mat buried in rugs,
a black and hidden place
that made Easter flash the brighter,
a circle of volcanoes erupting with seas of lava,
like chunks of sun that torched the land,
and burned away the past.
Ascension of the Lord
A mountain-shattering earthquake
could not have changed us more
that Easter morning,
not age-old recipes for lentil soup
or spices for the kibbe,
but inside,
the reason for eating changed
when life required no eating.
Reports described this body floating,
the rules of earth reversed,
as we casually waved farewell,
because we walked on our heads
so saw him fall, not rise,
as though his body of Bethlehem
was slipping away
Divine Mercy Sunday 2015
Evading God’s command,
the people plotted to kill
the hidden prophet,
and Jeremiah gasped a prayer
to witness God’s vengeance.
Un-surmising
he invoked the same lust for power
the people inflicted on him,
and Jeremiah missed
a revelation of God’s mercy.
Before the coffin lid
is lowered into place,
my Lord of Damiano,
I need to make a meditation.
You spoke to Francis
from this San Damiano cross
to work at rebuilding
your house,
and I am part of it,
and so my father Francis
has been rebuilding me.
Easter 2015
Surprises overwhelmed me,
unbidden I leaped to heights of love
and was lost in admiration of Christ glorified.
The demons which taunted me
evaporated in frightened flight,
while courage and love adopted me
as a standing paladin.
Communing with the beauty of Easter,
I lost all consciousness,
in merely glimpsing the flames of light
that signaled risen life.
Death
The clamor marked
the man for judgment,
Hosanna in accolade by dearer friends,
and murmured rejection
for trickery and words too grandly spoken.
Mount Tabor telegraphed his passing,
confounding disciples,
    too frightened to wave
more honorific branches.
Confessing right to die with him,
companions quaked
to weigh the beam he carried
and spikes the soldiers tucked
    within their belts.