ERASING, “IT’S  OVER”

It’s hard to hear, “It’s over!”

It is. If the movie, the meal,

the vacation was good, it’s

hard to face, “It’s over.”

Someone else needs our table,

our seat, our space, our place.

The End – it’s part of every day -

every movie –  every life. It’s reality.

The disciples had to face it.
Their Jesus was arrested,

roughed up, beaten, ridiculed,

condemned and pushed towards

Calvary with a cross - with death

just ahead. And he died. It’s over.

Death…. Burial… Roll the rock

over the entrance of the tomb.

Yet all stories, all history was about to

change that weekend, that moment,

in that tiny place in Palestine.

Easter…. Resurrection… began.

The Father erased death, pushed

away the rock, lifted his Son and

announced to all, “It’s not over!”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2014

WHAT IS IT 

WE NEED TO OPEN THE WINDOW UP FOR 

AND LET IT FLY OUT INTO THE WORLD? 

Poem for Today - April 26, 2014

THE WRITER

In her room at the prow of the house

Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,

My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing

From her shut door a commotion of typewriter keys

Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff

Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,

As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor

Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling

Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;

And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,

We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature

Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove

To the hard floor, or the desk-top.

And wait, humped and bloody,

For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits

Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,

Beating a smooth course for the right window

And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,

Of life and death, as I had forgotten. I wish

What I wished you before, but harder.

© Richard Wilbur

LIMITATIONS, YET ....

Poem for Today - April 25, 2014

VESSEL OF WHOLENESS

Fractured
cracked
held together
in wholeness
completeness
by the air of the Spirit
the putty of trust
the glue of friendship
the cement of Scripture.
Serving a purpose
Beautifying the world
Testifying 
to the power,
strength,
and possibilities
of limitations embraced.

(c) Imelda Cooper

Painting: The Broken Vase
by Harry Wilson Watrous

CHRIST! 

AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!

Poem for Today - April 24, 2014

CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN

Christ will come again,
God's justice to complete,
to reap the fields of time
and shift the weeds from wheat;
then let us passionately care
for peace and justice here on earth,
and evil's rage restrain with love,
till Christ shall come again.

(c) Brian Wren

Painting by Matthias Grunewald,
from the Resurrection Panel
of the Isenheim Altarpiece

YES CHRIST CAN

Poem for Today - April 23, 2014

IF JESUS COULD

If Jesus could transform
common water
     into wedding wine
spit and dirt
     into new sight
troubled sea
     into a pathway
well water
     into living water
Could Christ transform
     the waters of my life
     shallow
     murky
     polluted
     stagnant
     sour
          into a shower
          of blessing?

(c) Tom Lane

CHALK

Poem for Today - April 22, 2014

A SICK POET

PRAYS TO HIS GOD

O God,
I am content to be
Thy little piece of chalk.
(So small and white and thin).
Write thou with me
How men should walk --
And if betimes
'neath the pressure of thy hand
I squeak and squeal a bit
In shrill complaint
Bear down the harder
Lord
And write with me
Until I crumble into dust.
But do not (no, Lord, no)
Wash Thy hands of me
(White powder on They fingertips)
But let me unto Thee
adoring Thee
for all eternity.
Amen.

(c) Frater Joseph Manton CSSR
around 1913

First Dogma, Mt. St. Alphonsus

Esopus, New York

THE WAY OF THE CROSS

Poem for Today - Monday April 21, 2014

THE WAY OF PAIN

For parents, the only way
is hard. We who give life
give pain. There is no help.
Yet we who give pain
give love; by pain we learn
the extremity of love.

I read of Abraham's sacrifice
the Voice required of him,
so that he lead to the altar
and the knife his only son.
The beloved life was spared
that time, but not the pain.
It was the pain that was required.

I read of Christ crucified,
the only begotten Son
sacrificed to flesh and time
and all our woe. He died
and rose, but who does not tremble
for his pain, his loneliness,
and the darkness of the sixth hour?
Unless we grieve like Mary
at his grave, giving Him up
as lost, no Easter morning comes.

And then I slept, and dreamed
the life of my only son
was required of me, and I 
must bring him to the edge
of pain, not knowing why.
I woke, and yet that pain
was true. It brought his life
to the full in me. I bore him
suffering, with love like the sun,
too bright, unsparing, whole.

(c) Wendell Berry

pages 43-44 in

Upholding Mystery,

edited by David 

Impastato