Category: Poetry

Christian Wiman, “Every Riven Thing” [Poetry for Easter]

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Each week during Eastertide I am posting a poem that helps me engage more meaningfully with Jesus’ resurrection. Here is Christian Wiman’s poem “Every Riven Thing,” which is from Every Riven Thing (2011). Christian Wiman is a contemporary poet and essayist who edited Poetry (2003-2013) and serves at Yale Divinity School as Professor of the Practice of Religion and Literature.

God goes, belonging to every riven thing He’s made
Sing his being simply by being
The thing it is:
Stone and tree and sky,
Man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing He’s made,
Means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
Trying to will himself into the stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing He’s made
There is given one shade
Shaped exactly to the thing itself:
Under the tree a darker tree;
Under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made
The things that bring Him near,
Made the mind that makes Him go.
A part of what man knows,
Apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing He’s made.

Previous poems in this series:

George Herbert, “Easter Wings”

Denise Levertov, “On Belief in the Physical Resurrection of Jesus”

Denise Levertov, “On Belief in the Physical Resurrection of Jesus” [Poetry for Easter]

Matt Erickson1 Comment

Each week during Eastertide I am posting a poem that helps me engage more meaningfully with Jesus’ resurrection. Here is Denise Levertov’s poem “On Belief in the Physical Resurrection of Jesus,” from The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov. Denise Levertov was a twentieth century poet, born in England and later residing in the United States.

It is for all
‘literalists of the imagination,’
poets or not,
that miracle
is possible and essential.
Are some intricate minds
nourished on concept,
as epiphytes flourish
high in the canopy?
Can they
subsist on the light,
on the half
of metaphor that’s not
grounded in dust, grit,
heavy
carnal clay?
Do signs contain and utter,
for them
all the reality
that they need? Resurrection, for them,
an internal power, but not
a matter of flesh?
For the others,
of whom I am one,
miracles (ultimate need, bread
of life,) are miracles just because
people so tuned
to the humdrum laws:
gravity, mortality-
can’t open
to symbol’s power
unless convinced of its ground,
its roots
in bone and blood.
We must feel
the pulse in the wound
to believe
that ‘with God
all things
are possible,’
taste
bread at Emmaus
that warm hands
broke and blessed.

Previous poems in this series:

George Herbert, “Easter Wings”

Jesus, the Bringer of Bread: a poem reflection on Mark 6-8 and John 6

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

“Jesus, the bringer of bread,” they called Him.
In place after place, He fed the hungry:
the meals for five-thousand and four-thousand,
plus all the feasts in homes along the way.
When a Gentile woman asked Him to heal
her demon-oppressed daughter, it was bread
to which she made reference in her appeal:
“Even dogs, with fallen breadcrumbs, are fed.”
“Jesus, the bringer of bread.” What a name
for this One with no home in which to rest,
who looked more like the ones He came to save
than those supposed to be divinely blessed.
Still, in Him they found soul-deep nourishment
for He was the bread of life God had sent.

George Herbert, “Easter Wings” [Poetry for Easter]

Matt Erickson1 Comment

As I did two years ago, each week during Eastertide I will post a poem that helps me engage more meaningfully with the message of Christ’s resurrection. Here is George Herbert’s poem “Easter Wings” from The Temple. George Herbert was a priest in the Church of England and one of the most significant poets of the 17th century metaphysical poetry movement.

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
      Though foolishly he lost the same,
            Decaying more and more,
                  Till he became
                        Most poore:
                        With thee
                  O let me rise
            As larks, harmoniously,
      And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne
      And still with sicknesses and shame.
            Thou didst so punish sinne,
                  That I became
                        Most thinne.
                        With thee
                  Let me combine,
            And feel thy victorie:
         For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Jesus Draws Away: poem and prayer from Matthew 14

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

inspired by Matthew 14:1-21

John the Baptizer at his highest point
spoke to soft souls of God’s rigorous way,
of the need for true repentance to join
the highway of God’s holiness today.
But now, good John, imprisoned unjustly,
caught up in the machinations of power,
is dead. A young girl’s passion-dance swiftly
brought a king’s rash vow—John’s death in an hour.
That same king’s wary eye falls on Jesus.
whose wonder-working power has drawn great crowds;
a sort of echo: John redivivus.
King Herod wants to seek and end that sound.
So, now, Jesus withdraws to the desert
to let His Father’s loving voice recenter.

* * *

A prayer of response:

Lord, give me grace
to hear Your voice of love
amidst all the sounds
and pressures of life.
Help me know when and how
to withdraw with You
that I might be recentered
by You and in You.