Tender, green again
A pair of Easter-ish poems
I have one explicitly Easter-ish poem to my name, which has already appeared on this page twice in one year; once last Easter, and once in November when we needed (I needed?) a reminder that hard times don’t last forever. If you need that reminder now — and why wouldn’t you? — please do visit either of those links. If you’d prefer a couple of less frequently published, Easter-adjacent poems, well, you’re in luck. Here they are: one more stained-glass window poem,1 and one of the hymns to spring that poets can’t seem to help writing.
STAINED GLASS WINDOW 2002
The Good Shepherd
Against the bluest sky and greenest grass
the Shepherd’s robe is whitest white; the sheep
who crowd around his knees are spotless too,
although (from deference, surely) not so bright; even so,
pleased with their woolly selves, pleased with the light
that shines through them and through the Shepherd too,
they pose alert, complacent, fluffed with dignity —
except for the lamb,
toylike and limp in the crook of the Shepherd’s arm,
eyelids dropped shut, baby muzzle curled in bliss,
dreaming maybe of greener than greenest meadows
under deeper than bluest sky; while through its tiny
foolish trustful self the Shepherd’s light comes streaming,
as white as His robe, as bright as all the world.SPRING CANTICLE 2014
No more new words
for sticky curls of early leaves
thrust out of twig-tips flushed with sap
from the heart of ancient living wood;
no more new words
for the mercy of God that endures forever,
unfolded tender, green again,
in any momentary season of compassion.
See how the trees stand like monks
rooted in their choirs, voicelessly chanting
the same cycle of psalms as the years turn round:
old glorias for new green, familiar daily hymns
to praise again the silent stir at creation’s heart,
the moist, frail amazement of grace everlasting. I’ve written a lot of stained-glass window poems, mostly because my church has an amazing, random, eloquent collection of mostly early-1900s stained glass. This is the first window that nudged a poem out of me; every few years after that I’d write another, until around 2016 when I got intentional and finished a whole set and made a chapbook out of them. Even the set is not of all the stained-glass in the church, just the windows in the walls of the largest space.
Both so beautiful. Poems about spring *never* get old.
The stained glass poem is delightful. I love the way you really capture the feeling of the light shining through and how that works metaphorically as well.
But the spring canticle really tugs at my heart. I love the trees standing like monks rooted in their choirs voicelessly chanting. And the way you capture how satisfactory it can be to be rooted in the cycle of the seasons and in the liturgical cycle, welcoming as fresh and new the old familiar psalms and hymns, the old familiar leaves and blooms. Beloved because they are both returning favorites and because with each turning of the cycle they feel new again.