sonnets – Page 3

For late Thursday night

IX – The Garden
In lunar brilliancy they walking show
mid leafy branches’ budding scented bloom
& grasses warmed in vernal sun now groom
Gethsemane, in paschal light aglow.

We waiting here, he forward goes for room
To falling, praying, moaning, sighing, bled
To sobbing, straining, weeping, sweating, red
Till far away is heard the tramp of doom

Apostles wake upon their grassy bed
To find the traitor with the temple guards
Is come. And boldly striding cross the yards
Afore Messiah stop’d he smiling said

Hail Master! Teacher surly me you know.

With both lips with no words the nails in go.

A 2nd Sonnet for Thursday

VIII – Eucharist
He wash’d their feet & now would make them free:
a mundane miracle will now combine.
The God-Man bids that man on God will dine
& daily service now makes unity.

These common building blocks of bread & wine
our Saviour takes into his holy hands
& those, around him sat, his love commands
in mystic rites to make all men divine.

The Apostolic preaching in all lands
will be enliven’d by this bread. God gives
to Church her dancing food. She moves & lives
By sacraments now altar’d by Christ’s hands.

Salt, flour, water, grapes, & yeast we see
yet very flesh & blood of God they be.

First Sonnet for Thursday

VII – The Washing

At Table: Christ Mandatum Novum do

to us that we in love should brothers hold

as He embodies love for us. Thus bold

in love the nations seeing might him know.

Example: washing feet in servant’s mold!

To each apostle come in turn: St Pete

refuses God now kneeling at his feet.

“An not I wash you then be gone” is told.

Yet even strengthen’d well this night unmeet

you will deny me thrice. Belov’d take heart:

you show how human weakness plays its part

til providential saving plan’s complete

Reshod thus Peter savéd, wash’d did go

to felling by a maid at sunrise crow.

The Final Sonnets (for now)

V Spy Wednesday – Judas
Now Judas thief & liar, devil, friend
Here come I carefully to you: for pot
& kettle are both black. & we are not
That far I think each from the other’s end.

The Priceless One you sold for not a lot:
the price of one escapéd slave. Yet I
just any petty lust or care will buy
with love I owe to him; his love forgot.

Dear Judas, priests through you the Christ did buy
I understand & pity for I fear
That I your course can eas’ly find quite near:
Your steps for hunger’s slake I trod & die.

Lord Christ forbid that I my feet will wend
on damning ways that Satan to me sends.

VI Interlude

The actors all are here in place, our play

is set! The curtain ready rises now:

Apostles, Traitor, Priests, & King all bow.

Let us kneel down to watch the passion fray.

Here Pharisees assembled make a vow.

Here Judas strides with kiss through garden’s night.

Here Pilot waits for judging by his light.

Here Christ the Lamb of God all disavow.

Foul Clergy here will mock & slay a blight.

Confus’d Apostles here lost to a man.

Great Romans here made tools in God’s own plan.

Poor Women here will, mourning, get it right.

Tiz God’s victor’ous Coronation Day

when death itself our God by death shall slay!

Two more Holy Week Sonnets

III Holy Monday – Pharisees

Ye scribes & lawyers, hypocrites ye brood

of vipers: pharisees who twirl the law

to lure a proselyte into your maw

then spit out worse; within your precepts stewed!

The Torah’s words from out your crooked craw

draw obligations far too hard to bear.

Our God’s Revealéd words for making fair

you twist in ways that Moses never saw.

But turn ye now from that corrupted fare

& belly up to God’s reforming grace

Which calls the people of another race

to make both one in his redeeming care

The Jews & Gentiles both hath God pursu’d

Would at his table both by Christ include.

IV Holy Tuesday – the Harlot

When trapp’d in sins the night without a moon

is dark: no hope nor freedom found in lust

that fills this moment’s craving only. Trust

Alone in God can make his lovers swoon.

To Christ now so she comes. As come she must

for rest, to whom men come for passions’ fall.

So she whose empt’ing man can’t fill can call

to him whose emptying salvation thrust

to hell and every time of Terra’s ball.

His feet that soundéd first in Eden’s glen

she bathes in tears. She dries with hair & then

anointing them: her love repairs her fall.

Yet Judas fails to see this grace who soon

is damnt as dances she to Jesus’ tune.

First three sonnets for Holy Week

Prelude

O Lord always majestic is thy name.

No man may sing thy praises worthily

& mould’ring – wanting words to hear & see

is often in believers’ hearts thy fame.

Still yet we try with prose & harmony

to render mysteries in physic’s space:

depicting love as icons show thy face

to offer latria enfleshedly.

If Donne like saints, though sleeping, lend his grace

unlettered I make bold on pages ink’d

to build in classic form of couplets link’d

& structured verses, thus thy praises trace.

Lest Onan’s songs on formless pride I frame

Creator God the Word my words enflame.

I – Lazarus Saturday

Tiz better to have lov’d & lost: so said

the Bard when speaking of the heart’s romance.

What would he say of God & man who dance

As friends til mortal man is stoppéd dead?

Then God can weeping fall in mourner’s trance

While sisters, neighbors, pharisees, & all

will wonder at his healing advent’s stall:

when but one touch restor’d the blind man’s glance.

But God has come prophetic’ly to fall

the gates of death. Our Lover’s voice will part

hell’s ramparts. Raising Laz’rus by God’s art:

The tyrant soon will rule an empty hall.

Here he whom four days dead in darkness tread

Rejoices now and rests in his own bed

II – Palm Sunday

All glory laud & honor children sing:

to thee hosanna, Lord, hosanna! Praise

we thee with them, our olive branches raise.

Thy train in triumph through the gate we bring

With garments strewn the road to glory lays:

what ails the crowd that soon they’ll turn away?

Here where we hear hosanna cried today

great hearts will fail as darkness on them preys.

O Lord prevent our hearts that make essay

of crowning Thee as Israel’s King & God

from dancing to temptation’s tunes that prod

like cattle us, thine image thus to slay.

Let us not join them as thy hands they sting

with nails & in our name they kill their king.