Earthening & the Grandeur of God
Ashes and palm-branches
Bookends of Lent
Earthening, homing, lengthening, soul-ing
Pruning what’s lifeless and spent
“Remember Ha-damah (Adam), that you are dust,
And unto dust you shall return…”
Springtime resurgence
Pandemic begone!
Deepening, flowing, strengthening, groaning
When will we welcome the dawn?
“Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the One who comes!”
Spreading branches, singing psalms
Awaiting salvation’s sweet balm
Hope and hosannas
The birthing draws near
Composting, turning, while earthworms are churning
Compelling new life to appear
“And for all this, nature is never spent,” the Poet says,*
“There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”
How are we deepening, Ha-damah? Humana?
O creatures of Earth’s deepest dream?
What is Be-human-ing, composting, Ha-damah?
What’s cradling our new flower seed?
How will we open to what’s coming?
Seeking the Holy in Weeks ahead…
Holy Weeks fraught with cries of suffering,
Last meals, last words, anguished pleading,
“Let this cup pass me by …”
Isolation, separation, anxiety, despair
With masked faces, no visitors, pervasive fear
Is there no hope for refugees, for those most in need?
Cruel betrayal, heart-breaking denial, gross ignorance, sickening greed
The agony of a lonely last breathing,
“Into Your hands, I commit my Spirit.”
And then it all ends?
And we run from the tomb in fear?
Or is it commencing?
A new Easter presenting
Earth-angels, how might we roll away the stone?
Whence comes the Breath of Heaven
Singing life into brittle bones
We shall rise,
And we shall rise,
And we shall rise again!
“And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods
With warm breast, and with ah! bright wings.”
* “The Poet” refers to nineteenth-century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., and the italicized words are excerpts from his brilliant poem “God’s Grandeur.” For the full text of the poem, go to https://poets.org/poem/gods-grandeur
—collaboratively composed by Laura A. Weber and Bert R. Thelen, Prairiewoods associate director and friend of Prairiewoods