Passiontide refers to the last two weeks of Lent. It commemorates the passio – suffering of Jesus and encompasses Palm Sunday and Holy Week. It is a time of remembrance of Jesus’ unswerving path, the road to Jerusalem, the Via Dolorosa (from the Latin language in the medieval period) for “the sorrowful way” and believed to be the route in the Old City of Jerusalem that Jesus walked to his crucifixion. Jesus kept going.
Some say a poem does nothing – makes nothing happen.
Is that so?
Why then am I moved to lament weep hope trust – change
when words come to me as a song or a prayer
or a psalm?
Did Jesus know poems?
Jewish, he knew the Psalms – Hebrew sacred poems
meant to be sung, perhaps learned early in the beginning
of his life among us on earth and in his mind and heart
remembered in his last moments
when he was lifted – suffering – on high
and cried out words of a familiar psalm
knowing it did not end with the words of his cry
but continues to flow to its ending.
How much does a poem weigh?
Does it matter if something weighs not at all
or heavier or as light as the feather I found this morning
whether from a creature molting
or a song bird disappeared by predation.
How much does a feather weigh unloosed
from the living body that surely loved its life winged
out over everything everywhere – now gone somewhere else
like breath – like wind?
What is the weight of the Twenty-second Psalm’s ending?
Does it weigh as much or heavier than Jesus’ plaintive cry?
Some say a poem does nothing – makes nothing happen. Oh –
is that so?
Notes: Psalm 22:1: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Psalm 22:24: For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted, he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.
I am indebted to Jewish and New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine, whose beautiful book Entering the Passion of Jesus assisted, in part, the inspiration for writing the poem and its thought and questions.
Margie
Special Note: Psalm 22 is the focus scripture, with verses 1 and 24 in particular.
One response to “Passiontide Questions”
What courage and love Jesus exhibited as He tread on the road knowing what was to come. He carried the heavy cross for all humanity. The questions in this poem have depth. It also introduces me to Psalm 22 proclaiming praise for our Lord. Poems like this cause reflection. Thank you.