Wide-Awake City Poetry is what makes sure we are awake.

Poems for Lent and Good Friday-- one from me, one from Christina Rossetti.  Enjoy.  Or rather, dismay; it is Good Friday, after all.

The dash from ash to Easter light

Lord, God-thing,
conch shell ear of the earth,
needle eye of the sky,
it is winter--

Weaknesses and ashiness
are petrifying
nuggets of hard resentment
kidney stones of heavy lead
and we are yelling, we are waving our arms.

We the little people
sign of the cross
on our every organ
eucharist crumbs
stuck between our teeth

We carry things.
We hurl them at You
with great grunting.
They plunk into the separation sea.

We hope the ripples
reach you.

We carry winter with us
freezing with our arms full
but reluctant to release.

We will clench our teeth tight
We will carve our wills
We will keep raising our eyes.


Good Friday– by Christina G. Rossetti

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky.
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.