Friday, April 2, 2010

Not since Noah's day

This is a fragment of a poem that I began years ago and never finished. Or maybe I did finish it, and didn't know it...

Stations

I know where the Raven went…

“Give us the father’s son,” we cried
and so the Son of the Father died.

The Lion of Judah picked up his cross
and went to his death like a man.
The Lamb of God picked up his cross
and went to his death as a man.
The Son of God picked up his cross and went to his death
as Adam did once, but this once, once for all.

So Lion and Lamb and God and Man lay down
(Is this the Peaceable Kingdom come at last?)
and stretched out his hands for the nails.
Not since Noah’s day has wood upheld
such a menagerie.

The raven was sent out and stayed away
unlike the dove who, flighty, like the wind,
came back to Noah twice, but then, the third time,
spurned his offered hand.
Perhaps she joined the raven then,
and circled with him overhead
until they saw the stretched out pierced hands
that waited for them both
upheld by different wood, upon a leafless tree,
while higher still above an eagle watched them all
with its keen eyes, then spiraled out of sight
of those below.

No leafy gift to bear back to the ark,
no cheery rainbow armistice with God,
but thorns and spear and rough cut wood
and women crying underneath this tree,
and gasping breath, and thunder overhead.

The raven and the dove were sent away
in hope of finding hope, and so they have.
God's grace and mercy fruited on that tree
and bear us up like eagle's wings, while
His breath breathes us in and out
with love and life.

He gives to us for us to give away.

“It is finished!”
So You say.
It has hardly begun.



(c) Allison de Kanel 2010

Edited a couple of times but done for now.