2 minute read
Forty Lenten Haiku
from Lost Lake Folk Opera v5n1 Special Poet Laureate issue Spring & Summer 2018
by Lost Lake Folk Opera magazine, a Shipwreckt Books imprint
Lee
Henschel Jr.
Advertisement
Author of The Sailing Master, Books One & Two, (Rocket Science Press 2014 & 2018)
1. in the blue jungle where ancient spirits dwell there rings a tiny bell dawn spreads across the Negev to reveal the coming day
2. Sea of Galilee, placid, blue, God’s own daughter blood in the water
3. in the hushed air, in the sleeping shadows, in the dry scent of cedar
4. you feed the latent fire, and within the small flame everything has found its name
Nazarenes gather at the well coming to fetch their water some call you messiah, some say heretic, son of god, son of man both begotten and made
5.
6. but Mary knows you well long before you knew yourself, so restive in her womb
7. your first breath the first hungry cry of an artless child
8. no one to interpret no one to guide left on your own
9. left to your imagination left to wander on your own with no instructions, only a vow
10. a forthright child humble, and of low birth no king on high
11. Nazareth and Capernaum your humble beginning your love of the poor
12. your first stumble not on Calvary’s steep slope, but as you learn to walk
13. when you were a child, and watched the storm clouds racing did you know, even then, how it would be?
14. but for now you only play in the sun Mary’s precious child
15.
Joseph, teaching you his trade the feel of heart wood the balance of a well made tool
23. in the Sinai lost in the searing heat your fears rise
16. but you’re a dreamer never focused or attentive always elsewhere
17. dreaming of some kindness unexpected and unforced done for the sake of doing stark moon, sentient shadows, the slow waltz of candle light a form of prayer
18.
19. in the deepest shadow awaits the transubstantiation as Mary mourns her son
20. your flesh consumed by those who would love you and your blood, drunk by the same the moment will surely come when Peter turns his back and Pilate stands aside sacrament of awareness devotion to the moment warm rain upon your skin the touch of a wordless prayer
21.
22.
24. the Essenes bring you here to deny you food and water and to purge you of your fear
25. not the fear of dying but the granularity of your death filling the cup
26. a woman stands alone a desert rose in her hand she does not know how it will end, only where count the sabra count the dunes when you thirst, will the Roman bring only gall?
27. the agony the fear rising at Gethsemane will death will be everlasting?
28. your heart, pierced through by a spear the centurion comes to break you legs, to make sure you are dead
29. Father, deliver them from fear bless them with your grace
30.
I thank you for my life, for my life I will be hear now be hear now
31. to honor it to nurture it to share it
32. for the sake of their well being so they will meet along the way and help each other, help each other
33. if not with compassion, then with kindness if not with kindness, then gratitude so unlike the Pharisees who say no when all along it is yes satellites cross the night sky weeping, unveiling the spell
34.
35.
36. to reveal our blue marble placed just so in heaven’s open field
37. a dominant gene an earthen jewel never to be seen
38. when you arrive in hell what will Lucifer say? that the children will be first to die
39. in the blue jungle where ancient spirits dwell there rings a tiny bell
Columbine, Red Lake, Sandy Hook, Marjory Stoneman Douglas
40. arise, but not just yet, serve the poor, for it is late the stones in this stream do not wait
