Tag: easter

Teresa of Avila, “Christ Has No Body” [Poetry for Easter]

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

Each week during Eastertide I am posting a poem that helps me engage more meaningfully with Jesus’ resurrection. Here is Teresa of Avila’s poem “Christ Has No Body.” Teresa was a 16th century Carmelite nun in Spain best known as a mystic, reformer, and writer who experienced divine visions. Her most important works include her Autobiography, The Way of Perfection, and The Interior Castle.

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Previous poems in this series:

George Herbert, “Easter Wings”

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

Christian Wiman, “Every Riven Thing”

T. S. Eliot, “East Coker,” Stanza IV

Emily Dickinson, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”

R. S. Thomas, “Resurrection”

R. S. Thomas, “Resurrection” [Poetry for Easter]

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

Each week during Eastertide I am posting a poem that helps me engage more meaningfully with Jesus’ resurrection. Here is R. S. Thomas’ poem “Resurrection” from Selected Poems. Thomas was an Anglican priest and a leading Anglo-Welsh poet of the 20th century.

Easter. The grave clothes of winter
are still here, but the sepulchre
is empty. A messenger
from the tomb tells us
how a stone has been rolled
from the mind, and a tree lightens
the darkness with its blossom.
There are travellers upon the road
who have heard music blown
from a bare bough, and a child
tells us how the accident
of last year, a machine stranded
beside the way for lack
of petrol, is crowned with flowers.

Previous poems in this series:

George Herbert, “Easter Wings”

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

Christian Wiman, “Every Riven Thing”

T. S. Eliot, “East Coker,” Stanza IV

Emily Dickinson, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”

Emily Dickinson, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” [Poetry for Easter]

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

Each week during Eastertide I am posting a poem that helps me engage more meaningfully with Jesus’ resurrection. Here is Emily Dickinson’s poem “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” While Emily Dickinson was anything but an orthodox Christian, many of her poems, such as this one, capture the power of religious themes and the deeper life. Living in the United States in the 18th-century, Dickinson spent the majority of her adult life as a recluse. Her first volume of poetry was published posthumously in 1890, enjoying immediate success and laying the groundwork for Dickinson to become one of the most important American poets.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Previous poems in this series:

George Herbert, “Easter Wings”

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

Christian Wiman, “Every Riven Thing”

T. S. Eliot, “East Coker,” Stanza IV

T. S. Eliot, “East Coker” [Poetry for Easter]

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

Each week during Eastertide I am posting a poem that helps me engage more meaningfully with Jesus’ resurrection. Here is stanza IV of T. S. Eliot’s poem “East Coker,” which is from Four Quartets (1943). Thomas Stearns Eliot is probably the most famous twentieth-century English-language poet, renowned for his groundbreaking work typified in poems like “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1911) and The Wasteland (1922). Eliot was born in the United States but resided in England for most of his adult life.

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

    Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

    The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

    The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

    The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

Previous poems in this series:

George Herbert, “Easter Wings”

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

Christian Wiman, “Every Riven Thing”

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

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

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”