Holy Week Poems.png

HOSANNA (PALM SUNDAY)

A cry of liberation

from the lips of those

who do not wish to maintain

the status quo—

a longing for Babylon,

America, and Rome 

to be overthrown.

But, could it be that our hosannas

must go even deeper? 

For if evil is not cut off at the root

it will continue to produce

Babylonian, American, and Roman fruit.

FLIPPING TABLES (HOLY MONDAY)

Anger at injustice is holy.

How sacred it is

to flip tables

instead of sitting quietly

and minding my own business!

There is no virtue

in being a pious bystander.

I welcome the slander

that comes with causing

a righteous ruckus.

Some tables I need to flip

rather than concerning myself

with whether or not there is space

for me to sit.

30 PIECES (HOLY TUESDAY)

There’s only one way

The empire wins,

By turning us against

Those that are kin.


We like to make Judas

Out as the villain

While ignoring the empire’s

Sinister dealings.


Don’t let them off that easy.

It was an intentional scheme

To offer a poor man

30 pieces.

TOWEL AND BASIN (MAUNDY THURSDAY)

When I know who I am

with nothing to prove

it frees me to do

the work of love.

THE NINTH HOUR (GOOD FRIDAY)

I turned to my left,

my eyes swept across the terrain

to see if anyone had remained—

stayed closed by while the noonday sky

filled with thick darkness.


I turned again, hoping

to find your right hand

that always beckoned me to come and sit,

but now my enemies have made me their footstool,

and you are nowhere to be found.


Listening for your voice,

but only hearing the pounding of my abandoned heart

and the sound of my bones being crushed

under the weight of this forsakenness—

unwanted isolation.


I have known what it means

to be alone—at home,

silent and still, in the desert of my soul,

but being quarantined away from all Presence

is more than my essence can bear.


Even my breath can’t be near me,

as it slips out of my lungs, 

rejecting me

like everyone else 

in my hour of greatest need.


Like a seed, I fall

into the earth alone,

with nothing

but the stones

to keep me company.

SATURDAY (HOLY SATURDAY)

Is liminal space—

betwixt and between—

when all I can see is loss,


And I toss and turn in bed

because I dread 

what tomorrow may hold.


I was told that gain is coming—

that after the rain 

the sun will shine,


But my mind

can only conceive of death;

it is all we have ever known.

UNDER THE GROUND (EASTER)

Life is always happening

underground—

the place that light has forsaken.


Finite minds cannot take in 

that the belly of mother Earth

is, indeed, a womb.


Entombed in the soil is the pip

of a new Eden.

Only the seed that has fallen into the pit


can burst through into the morning dew

to announce to weeping eyes

that a new day has risen—


a day in which the voices and stories of women

are believed, their word received

as good news,


and the men have no problem

following them and

learning how to believe again.


What I mean is this:

the world has been flipped

on its head.


Heaven has invaded hell,

the spell of death is broken,

and the doorway opened to a new way of being.


It all begins with seeing

that the darkness of our world is luminous,

and in the humus of life is where we become fully human.