Semana Santa

SEMANA SANTA

The time of year when the world

Transforms into the inside of a tin can

Cooking in the noontime sun

Is when Jesus Christ is crucified

To astonishment of delirious crowds

Dropping in heat like dead insects

As reservoirs languish and asphalt streets,

Cracked, peeling, cry out for water.

Palm Sunday flutters weakly, a flag

Raising his arms in faint breeze.

You listen to the story of the Passion…

By the time Jesus is entombed,

You are wrung out and numb.

Days later, Maundy Thursday is mentholated,

Rising and setting in a wooded garden.

The reprieve is illusory.

Darkness shoves night inside an oven.

Soon you cannot escape Good Friday,

Twice hotter than the night before—

Turning round and round,

You are roasted on all sides,

Dripping as if broiling on a spit.

Two days’ provisions running low,

Holy Saturday finds you sitting peacefully

Beside a corpse for a companion

Inside a tomb pervaded by silence.

Comforted by cold, you imagine the sun

Without seeing the dawn.

You doze off the instant you wake up

To Easter Sunday suddenly present,

Pure, fresh water illumined by glory.

Inhaling a cloud, you glimpse the crystal city.

Originally published in The Galway Review (February 15, 2016)

The Crucifixion (1880) by Thomas Eakins

A Favorite Poem

Recently, I added to my file of favorite poems “Manunggul Jar” by Luisa A. Igloria, first published in Mud Season Review, Issue 16 (January 20, 2016). The poem recalls Wallace Stevens’ “Anecdote of the Jar.”

MANUNGGUL JAR

(Manunggul Cave, Palawan; late Neolithic)

Someone is loosing the rope

that tethered our boat

to the pier. Here we are, easing

forward into the fog, into the cold

that seems to have gotten colder.

We’ll pass the shuttered town,

we’ll slip into the currents

blue with the ink of unborn stars.

We’ll love them no less, no more,

even as the water swirls, changing

from jade to milk. The world we enter

then leave is round as the bowl of our

desires, and here the word for horizon

is the same as faithfulness: invisible

rudder our hands have always held,

even as now we cross our arms

across our chests, preparing

to travel farther, deeper.

Luisa A. Igloria

Manunggul burial jar

Two Bread Poems

Hot fresh bread…

Hot fresh bread, breakfast time:

Fragrant, not a flower,

Warming, not a fire,

Lively, not a flame,

Soothing, not a salve,

Kindly, not a caress;

Dark honey wheat,

Black oat barley,

Sweet cinnamon raisin,

Savory apple walnut,

Ciabatta, Foccacia, Pita,

Bublik, Chapati, Pandesal—

Parmesan, Romano—two-cheese,

Sunflower, sesame, fennel—three-seed,

Every type of loaf

Bundled in brown wrapper,

Crackling in your embrace,

Steaming scented clouds,

Breathe deeply

Atop a mountain;

Billowing, fluffy blanket,

Pull it up,

Tuck it snug

Beneath your chin;

Bracing, poppy fireside,

Cross your arms,

Hold it to your heart.

Fed in deepest winter,

Bathed at height of summer,

Refreshed when day is dry,

Sheltered when life is wet,

Healed when you are pierced,

Becalmed…even after you are violently shaken,

Remade in hope,

Transformed in joy,

Nourished, uplifted…blessed:

Every good thing comes to you

As a loaf of bread.

Let us bake bread…

Let us bake bread today.

Let us labor, let us stir

Wheat flour, honey, butter,

Add salt and warm water,

Leaven—waken yeast,

Breathing now,

Mold it all in one elastic ball,

Polish it with olive oil,

Wrap it,

And wait.

Wait for what?

Don’t ask questions.

Just wait.

It rises:

Promise of surety,

Plume of hope.

Knead the dough, roll it flat,

Fold it thick and thicker,

Push it down using

Heels of your palms.

The best part is

Dough smiles

At becoming

A new creation.

Pressing together,

You, the dough, are one.

More olive oil, wrap again,

Wait again.

Hours.

It rises.

Stoke the oven, shove it in.

Rising some more,

Freshly scented, golden brown,

Dawn has come to the door.

Day raps on the plate.

Napkins fold greetings.

Break off a piece,

Eat.

Golden wheat stalks