Imposition of Ashes
In the same lines they form
during communion by intinction,
an endless stream of saints
slithers forward like one long snake.
They expose foreheads
to receive the sign of the cross,
this smudge of ashes.
I (yet not I) baptized some of them,
sealing them in like manner
with Holy Spirit water.
“Remember, you have been baptized!”
I want to shout with the wild-eyed Luther.
“Turn away! Look to the cross
Where the serpent writhes!
Choose life, not death!”
For something in me resists all this
wallowing together in the dust
of our own petty pietistic sins
imposed with the grace mark of Cain
and the inevitable pronouncement:
“Remember you are dust
and to dust you shall return.”
After so many, they become like walking dead,
zombies conveyed forward,
corpse upon corpse without reality
like cordwood-stacked Holocaust victims
rolled into the gaping jaws of open pits
in army films of camps’ liberation.
Out of this endless streambed of death
floats up the stench of deeper sin
that lies buried, unnamed,
yet looming on the horizon
with the threat of war--
an utter helplessness
before the onslaught
of row upon endless row
of cross upon cross
marking so much waste
in national cemeteries.
Lord, have mercy!
Then something changes.
As eye meets eyes searching
for my acknowledgement
of what this ashen stain means
for the beloved before me
just diagnosed with terminal cancer,
the unspoken knowledge
that our time is precious,
that we may never share this ritual again
before we are locked in deathbed struggle
against the serpent slithering through dust,
I am overwhelmed.
Tears begin flowing
into the pyx of ashes.
I pause,
breathless.
Memory stumbles
as words fail, and, forgetting my role,
I can only blubber, as with ash I sign:
“Remember . . . remember whose you are.
In life and death you belong to God.”
Then I kiss her smudged forehead
as with babies fresh from the font.
Out of this sudden baptism of Spirit Compassion
springs forth others’ sympathetic tears
with the wild crying priest marking all
with sign of both life and death.
In the sacred space hovering hushed
beneath brooding angels’ wings
in the shadow
of the sanctuary’s huge suspended cross,
the numb dance of death
becomes a stately minuet of life.
Corpses come to life again as,
through the baptism of all our tears,
we begin to see Something More come forth:
A child clings to her father’s knees,
crying, “But Daddy, I don’t want you to die!”
A couple, secretly estranged,
now reaches silently for hands,
exchanging a wedding-vow gaze.
Behind them the snaked line of individuals
begins to slough off
as folks now step up two-by-two,
wordlessly knowing we cannot face
this awful truth alone.
The body-pierced Green Hair tenderly
helps the immaculately suited Blue Hair
accept her fate.
The CEO who fired two workers just last week
steps in line with the long-unemployed ballerina.
At the rear, the two ushers
who ordinarily can’t stand one another,
bow together before me,
united at last in accepting
their communion
in death to all death
under this dusty sign.
In the end I’m too stunned
to notice that I’ve been wiping my tears
with smudged fingers.
After the service,
I pass by the sacristy door mirror
and startle to see
my whole face ashen,
a death-smeared visage
streaked with baptized mortality,
which, nonetheless,
upon closer inspection,
cannot bury a deeper surprise shining forth--
Christ's tender transfiguration.
© 1993 Tess Lockhart. All rights reserved.
during communion by intinction,
an endless stream of saints
slithers forward like one long snake.
They expose foreheads
to receive the sign of the cross,
this smudge of ashes.
I (yet not I) baptized some of them,
sealing them in like manner
with Holy Spirit water.
“Remember, you have been baptized!”
I want to shout with the wild-eyed Luther.
“Turn away! Look to the cross
Where the serpent writhes!
Choose life, not death!”
For something in me resists all this
wallowing together in the dust
of our own petty pietistic sins
imposed with the grace mark of Cain
and the inevitable pronouncement:
“Remember you are dust
and to dust you shall return.”
After so many, they become like walking dead,
zombies conveyed forward,
corpse upon corpse without reality
like cordwood-stacked Holocaust victims
rolled into the gaping jaws of open pits
in army films of camps’ liberation.
Out of this endless streambed of death
floats up the stench of deeper sin
that lies buried, unnamed,
yet looming on the horizon
with the threat of war--
an utter helplessness
before the onslaught
of row upon endless row
of cross upon cross
marking so much waste
in national cemeteries.
Lord, have mercy!
Then something changes.
As eye meets eyes searching
for my acknowledgement
of what this ashen stain means
for the beloved before me
just diagnosed with terminal cancer,
the unspoken knowledge
that our time is precious,
that we may never share this ritual again
before we are locked in deathbed struggle
against the serpent slithering through dust,
I am overwhelmed.
Tears begin flowing
into the pyx of ashes.
I pause,
breathless.
Memory stumbles
as words fail, and, forgetting my role,
I can only blubber, as with ash I sign:
“Remember . . . remember whose you are.
In life and death you belong to God.”
Then I kiss her smudged forehead
as with babies fresh from the font.
Out of this sudden baptism of Spirit Compassion
springs forth others’ sympathetic tears
with the wild crying priest marking all
with sign of both life and death.
In the sacred space hovering hushed
beneath brooding angels’ wings
in the shadow
of the sanctuary’s huge suspended cross,
the numb dance of death
becomes a stately minuet of life.
Corpses come to life again as,
through the baptism of all our tears,
we begin to see Something More come forth:
A child clings to her father’s knees,
crying, “But Daddy, I don’t want you to die!”
A couple, secretly estranged,
now reaches silently for hands,
exchanging a wedding-vow gaze.
Behind them the snaked line of individuals
begins to slough off
as folks now step up two-by-two,
wordlessly knowing we cannot face
this awful truth alone.
The body-pierced Green Hair tenderly
helps the immaculately suited Blue Hair
accept her fate.
The CEO who fired two workers just last week
steps in line with the long-unemployed ballerina.
At the rear, the two ushers
who ordinarily can’t stand one another,
bow together before me,
united at last in accepting
their communion
in death to all death
under this dusty sign.
In the end I’m too stunned
to notice that I’ve been wiping my tears
with smudged fingers.
After the service,
I pass by the sacristy door mirror
and startle to see
my whole face ashen,
a death-smeared visage
streaked with baptized mortality,
which, nonetheless,
upon closer inspection,
cannot bury a deeper surprise shining forth--
Christ's tender transfiguration.
© 1993 Tess Lockhart. All rights reserved.
