Triduum

I.
You died 12 years ago tomorrow.
I thought that I would never stop grieving.
I remember looking for you—
in poetry;
in music.
I burned a CD for your sister
with songs that made me remember you.
Looking back now,
I wonder if giving it to her was cruel.
Did I cause more pain by showing how little I really knew you?


II.
It seems unjust that the anniversary of your death is on Good Friday this year.
There is nothing good about grieving for one you love[d].
We revel in knowing that 3 days hence Christ will rise again,
but my Easter will be bitter.
I am stuck in Saturday,
that mournful milieu where I am trapped between your death and
God’s eventual resurrection.
When will God fulfill his promise?


III.
I confess that I’ve been to your grave
only twice
in the past twelve years.
Last time I could barely remember where your body rested.
“They” say that time heals all wounds,
and I’m scared that these words are true.
Although I don’t want the pain,
I don’t want to forget you.
Can you forgive my neglect?
Can you forgive my forgetting?


IV.
I rest in the hope that there is somewhere else,
some time when I will see you again—
a place where you will be full of life,
of fiery passion—
where I will finally forget the memory
of the icy body they buried in the ground,
clutching a single bloom.
Will you remember me then?


V.
In my heart I planted a flower for you.
Lamprocapnos spectabilis—
an “old-fashioned bleeding heart.”
When we meet again,
I will place it on your grave and never look back.

by Katelyn Willis

composed in memory of Carla Drinkard, d. April 6 2000

Annunciation

Annunciation Sunday is coming up this weekend, and in celebration I offer this empowering poem by Sylvia Kantaris written from the perspective of Mary.


It seems I must have been more fertile than most
to have taken that wind-blown
thistledown softly-spoken word
into my body and grown big-bellied with it.
Nor was I the first: there had been
rumours of such goings-on before my turn
came—tales of swansdown. Mine
had no wings of feathers actually
but it was hopeless trying to convince them.
They like to think it was a mystical
encounter, although they must know
I am not of that fibre—and to say I was
‘trouble’ is laughable.
What I do remember is a great rejoicing,
my body’s arch and flow, the awe,
and the ringing and singing in my ears—
and then the world stopped for a little while.
But still they will keep on about the Word,
which is their name for it, even though I’ve
told them that is definitely
not how I would put it.
I should have known they’d try to take
possession of my ecstasy and
swaddle it in their portentous terminology.
I should have kept it hidden in the dark
web of my veins...
Though this child grows in me—
not unwanted certainly, but
not intended on my part; the risk
did not concern me at the time, naturally.
I must be simple to have told them anything.
Just because I stressed the miracle of it
they’ve rumoured it about the place that I’m
immaculate—but then they always were afraid
of female sexuality.
I’ve pondered these things lately in my mind.
If they should canonize me
(setting me up as chaste and meek and mild)
God only knows what nonsense
they’ll visit on the child.