Poem for you for Easter

Mary Harwell Sayler : Poem for Easter:  

For You,

I turned water into wine, purified in the veins

of My own body. I climbed mountains, healed

crowds of hunger, warmed a leper’s skin. For

you I chastised leaders, halted stones, wrote on

the ground each word contained in Love.

I overturned unfair prices and low wages, tabled

discussions about who’s first or last, and enjoyed

the most unlikely company.

Before My execution, I tamed a donkey, became

your beast of burden, then bled from every pore.

Once for all, I buried death, and, when I arose,

some saw Me. Some heard Me as I broke through

the veil, cloaking time and eternity, and, yes,

for you, I’d do it all again.

Amen.

 

Mary Harwell Sayler from book A Gathering of Poems

Valentines, Lent, and Love Poems

Today, Valentine’s falls on Ash Wednesday - the beginning of Lent and, in many churches, the annual 40-day season of introspection and self-examination that leads to confession, repentance, and the spiritual freedom needed to receive the joy of Easter.

At first, though, it seems ironic that a Valentine’s Day of flowers and candy coincides with a time typically thought of as giving up something - such as flowers and candy! But then, the colliding and coinciding can help us to see what they have in common with each other and this blog – love.

Praise God our Father!
Blessings on our Mother Earth.
We are their love child.

Mary Harwell Sayler, ©2017 from PRAISE! published by Cladach Publishing

Love of the beloved needs expression! The highest examples of these come in the Bible, the trek toward Easter, and the love expressed in poetry.

You’re undoubtedly read love poems – from greeting card verse on a Valentine to the 23rd Psalm to the poetic lines of a romantic sonnet. As a poet or student of poetry, you’ve probably tried your hand at writing a love poem too, but “love” has many faces.

Take, for example, from my book Faces in a Crowd this prose poem I’ll explain once you’ve had a chance to experience it.

Scavengers
after reading Attila Jozsef

Attila the Hungarian poet, I really love you. Please
believe me before you throw yourself beneath that
train. The fright of flying freight crushes my reading
of your prose poems – poems poised with insight
and odd juxtaposition. I try to rescue the paragraphs
you pose from extermination, reeling as I read. What
can I do but pet The Dog you left behind, ragged and
muddy, ready to avenge your wounds and scavenge
the pieces of God you hid in my upper berth on this
looming train?

Ever since childhood, I’ve “loved” poetry, which led to my reading the best works of classical and contemporary poets as evidenced in the above poem and also in the photo on the top right side of this page. Once my tastes in poetry became more eclectic than rhyming quatrains, I discovered poets from all over the world, each of whom brought experiences beyond my own.

Attila Jozsef of Hungary was one such poet. After I’d run across one of his wonderful poems in an anthology of poetry from all over the world, I researched him on the Internet, hoping to find more of his work. I did, indeed, find many thought-provoking, deliciously worded, introspective poems (suitable for Lent) such as “The Dog,” but I also learned he’d committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train. That sad news stunned me into a poem pleading for life and poetry and, perhaps, for his forgiveness of those of us who have led easier lives.

Contemplation of our ease versus dis-ease, our lives versus death, our love versus bigotry, bias, boredom, and indifference gives us the stuff of which poetry and Lent are made. But the greatest of these is God’s Word of love.

Child, Child,

If God didn’t love you, no eyes, no ears
would weave into your gut, no
heart would arch into the inner soles
of your shoes, showing you where to go.

If God didn’t trust you, there would be
no joy to oil your neighbors, no love to
cover the sins of your enemies, no Good
News to paper the walls of your head.

by Mary Harwell Sayler from poetry book, Outside Eden, published by Kelsay Books

…

Rest in the Moment

The drama of Lent and Passion of Christ propel us to rise with the Lord on Easter Sunday, but then what? Can that heightened awareness of our Lord and Savior continue throughout the year, and, if so, how?

In Rest in the Moment, poet-writer Christine Sine, who kindly sent me a copy of her book to review, responds to our need for closeness in her “Reflections for Godly Pauses.”

As explained in the Introduction, we have two types of silence: quies, which comes from an absense of noise, and silentium, “an internal, intentional posture of complete attentiveness toward God. It is a silence of making space for, taking time for and paying loving attention to the One we proclaim to be our God and Lord…. It means establishing a quiet inner attitude in which we set aside the distractions of our minds and hearts, draw from the stillness that is within us and commune with God in a very special way.”

After explaining this insightful way to be close to the Lord, the book further provides the means: first, in a meditative poem followed by a brief devotional and relevant scripture, then spaces to respond before closing in prayer.

The twelve meditations in this book get off to a blessed start with the title poem, “Rest in the Moment,” which begins with these lines:

“Rest in this moment of God’s creating.
Savor its beauty.
Inhale its fragrance.
Listen to its music.
Sit in awe of our God-infused world.
Rest in this moment of God’s unfolding….

As the author says in the devotional lines that follow, “This is an elusive rest. It means letting to of control over our schedules and our relationships. Sometimes it means letting go of things that we love to do or people we care about to create time to notice and appreciate the presence of God.”

The Apostle Paul talks about this rest in Philippians 4:11-13, where he says, he’s “learned to be content with whatever I have.”

The pages then turn to our response as we’re asked to consider “What distracts your attention from being fully attentive to God?” For each of us, the answers will differ, of course, and yet each of us can give our “Amen” to the closing prayer, which asks God to “Guide us to rest in each moment and enjoy the revelation of Your love it reveals.”

So? you might ask. What does this have to do with poetry or poetry writing? Perhaps nothing to the secular poet who’s waiting for the Muse to strike, but to me – everything!

If you want your poetry to be insightful, powerful, blessed, and a blessing to your readers, re-read the above discussion, rest well in the Lord, then let your poems flow with new depths and passion.

Mary Harwell Sayler, © 2017, poet-writer, reviewer


Rest in the Moment, paperback



…