Holy Week Poems #6: Holy Saturday

Happy Holy Saturday to you, friends. I trust you worshiped well and are finding rest on this “in between” day.

This week, I’ve spent each day meditating on the Revised Common Lectionary gospel texts for Holy Week (you can find them HERE) and then trying to write some short poems capturing what stands out to me about them. (Catch the first one HERE). It’s been fun and I’m really grateful for your interaction.

A quick word about today:

Holy Saturday is a day that receives short shrift in the church. Most of us don’t really know what to do with it. Which I think is sad. It’s a beautiful, meaningful day. The essence of what is often called “liminality” — a testimony to the way in which God works in the in-between.

Still, it is a very different kind of liturgical day, and I wanted to try to reflect that difference in the form of the poem I wrote for it. So, here it is—a triptych of three (loose) haikus based on Job 14 and John 19, written with pleasure and offered for yours.

Enjoy.

“Roots”

Pull the green tree down;
Strip the boughs and sever branches–
Life lingers in the roots.

Put God-Man in the ground;
Tuck the Life in soil and sadness–
Bury in our roots. 

What’s lost will soon be found–
Life harrowing our death and madness,
Kicking in the womb.