“Sin”

by D. Gwenallt Jones

When we strip off all our garments,
The cloak of respectability and academic knowledge,
The cloth of culture and the silks of learning,
How bare is the soul, the naked impurity:
The primitive mire in our makeup is revealed,
The beastly slime in our blood and bone,
The bow’s arrow held between our finger and thumb
And the barbaric rhythm in our dance.
As we wander through the ancient, primeval forest,
We glimpse through the branches a strip of Heaven,
Where the saints sing anthems of grace and faith,
The magnificat of His salvation;
So like wolves we lift our nostrils sky-wards
And howl for the Blood by which we are redeemed.

He was the Word, a wild and dancing Word,
before the world began; he danced in flame,
and galaxies were born, and songs became
the sinew of our bones, and he was Lord.

He danced in bread and wine, and in the bright
blue fountains of the Water of our birth,
and all the bells rang, and along the earth
the incense of a prayer rose, fresh and light.

He danced in speech, in names that had a power, in dreams with symbols vibrant and unknown, and all that was and is and is to come
was whole in grace and worship in that hour.

But we have fenced him in and tied him down;
we think he comes as words and not as Word,
as only what we prove, what we have heard—
not seen, not tasted, and therefore not found.

We preach a thousand sermons, and we lift
a thousand prayers in motions memorized,
and stumble home and have not realized:
the dance is mind and heart—the dance is gift.

He seeks us in the bread we fear to break,
the banners that we lift with trembling hand,
the images we fail to understand,
the steps in God’s strange dance we fear to take.

He is the Word, a wild and dancing Word;
he sings; his joy is fierce, his longing deep.
He calls us from ourselves and bids us weep
and dance and worship him, for he is Lord.

(“Lord of the Dance” by Jennifer Lynn Woodruff. Reprinted from Weavings XVII/2, March/April 2002, “Creativity.”)

“Soon”
By Christine Taylor (March 2010)

Tonight Jesus prays in the Garden.
The Last Supper things are put away
Passover is past
In Gethsemane, disciples are sleeping and their Lord is alone.
And He will stay that way.
In the next few hours He will face torment and death –
Alone.

Soon, soon He will surge up from the cold stone
Unwind the corpse wrappings
Kick down the big rock they thought would stop Him –
Soon. But not tonight.

Tonight is the alone time
The desperate prayer time
The sweating-blood time
With “Let this cup pass from me!”
“… but oh my father, not my will but Thine be done.”

Soon, soon He will burst out of the tomb
And in the Garden the Magdalen will fall at his feet
And the Emmaus disciples will feel their hearts burn
And they’ll run back to Jerusalem, run!
Soon — but not tonight.

Tonight they come for Him.
The column of men with their spitting torches
Smoking torches burning dark fire.
Looks like a fire snake,
Looks like the first snake dripping poison from the trees of Eden
Slithering up the hill to another garden.

Soon, soon Jesus will come again in glory
And the skies will split and the angels roar
Rank on rank the celestial army pours through the skies behind their Prince.
Soon — but not tonight.

Tonight He waits for the death-kiss
The Judas-kiss
The 20-pieces-of-silver kiss.
And He takes it, this kiss, like a slap.
Now. Tonight.
His time is not yet come.

And when they ask Him who He is
When they ask Him
He answers “I AM.”
The great name of God that Moses heard,
They hear it too and fall down like dead men.

Then He goes quiet and still.
He un-says His great name
He un-says His divinity
He un-says Himself.
Tonight he has no name.
He is the prisoner. The condemned. The lamb.
For tonight.

And because of tonight, then for you — soon, soon –
There will be the healing you long for
There will be the joy you prayed for
There will be the heart’s desire you ache for.

Not tonight — tonight is the night of torchlight and shadows.
But oh my children, the way of night is the way to morning.
Striped light time, dawn time, day time.
And I say to you, not tonight –
But soon. Oh my children, very soon.

Ballad of the Goodly Fere
by Ezra Pound

HA’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O’ ships and the open sea.

When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
“First let these go!” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Or I’ll see ye damned,” says he.

Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears
And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
“Why took ye not me when I walked about
Alone in the town?” says he.

Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine
When we last made company.
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere,
But a man o’ men was he.

I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men
Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.

They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book, I think,
Though they write it cunningly;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.

If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
“I’ll go to the feast,” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Though I go to the gallows tree.”

“Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead,” says he.
“Ye shall see one thing to master all:
’Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.”

A son of God was the Goodly Fere
That bade us his brothers be.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men.
I have seen him upon the tree.

He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free.
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue,
But never a cry cried he.

I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o’ Galilee.
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi’ his eyes like the gray o’ the sea.

Like the sea that brooks no voyaging,
With the winds unleashed and free,
Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi’ twey words spoke suddently.

A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.