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Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

Hast thou no scars?

Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

Judas

Judas

Always I lay upon the brink of love,
Impotent, waiting till the waters stirred,
And no one healed my weakness with a word;
For no one healed me who lacked words to prove
My heart, which, when the kiss of Mary wove
His shroud, my tongueless anguish spurred
To cool dissent, and which, each time I heard
John whisper to Him, moaned, but could not move.

While Peter deeply drowsed within love’s deep
I cramped upon its margin, glad to share
The sop Christ gave me, yet its bitter bite
Dried up my ducts. Praise Peter, who could weep
His sin away, but never see me where
I hang, huge teardrop on the cheek of night.

Vassar Miller (1924- )




Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

Good Friday

Good Friday

Am I a stone and not a sheep
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy Cross,
To number drop by drop thy blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women love
Who with exceeding grief lamented thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the sun and moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon---
I, only I.

Yet give not o'er,
But seek thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

---Christina Georgina Rossetti


Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

Adam

Adam (Genesis 4:8)

He'd seen this thing before, of course, but never like this.
After Eden, he'd found a swan lying motionless and silent,
forever rotting, irretrievable, and gone.
But now, it's his boy, the brother of Cain, the shepherd son,
the kind and faithful friend of He-Who-Is,
lying quiet and slain: finished, futureless, at the end of his end.
Once, Adam had named the names, and named his own two sons,
and named this curse, which mullifies and terminates, as: "death."
But he who'd known the awesome power of God looked to the skies,
knowing, without a doubt, through nothing was said,
his God both could and would undo the dead.


--William Baer


Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

The Monks of St. John's

The Monks of St. John's File in for Prayer

In we shuffle, hooded amplitudes, scapulared brooms,
a stray earring, skin-heads and flowing locks,
blind in one eye, hooked-nosed, handsome as a
prince (and knows it), a five-thumbed organist,
an acolyte who sings in quarter tones, one slightly
swollen keeper of the bees, the carpenter minus a
finger here and there, our pre-senile writing deathless
verse, a stranded sailor, a Cassian scholar,
the artist suffering the visually illiterate and indignities
unnamed, two determined liturgists.
In a word, eager purity and weary virtue.
Last of all, the Lord Abbot, early old (shepherding the saints is like herding cats).
These chariots and steeds of Israel make a
black progress into church.
A rumble of monks bows low and offers praise
to the High God of Gods who is faithful forever.

--Kilian McDonnell

Losses

Losses

The earth, an oblate sphere, slows down,
Second by second, in its erratic, elliptical orbit,
As molten, metallic seas slosh around its interior.
The moon slides in and hooks onto twigs,
The fingertips of the beech, which assess the dark air.
I live in an as-if, subjunctive mode
Since our lives dropped their indicative.
A fraction of wall still stands nearby,
A fraction of my crumbling will.
Rocking, I draw a pail of stars
From the East River, which turn to tears.
My friends have all died or moved away.
The sky is snowing ash.

--Stephen Stepanchev

Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo