(Revised version)
Candlesticks, chalice, paten all remind
Us of the reverence we seek to show
Our Paschal King. They are the first to go
This Maundy Night. It's time to leave behind
The starched white linen, gold brocade, and find
A bleaker, naked faith; to undergo
The three days' death that wakens us to know
This paradox: to see we must grow blind.
Criss-crossing without words the servers walk,
Take cloths and hangings out; we kneel, and pray;
The lights are dimmed; now Lent has done its work.
The chill night air strips clinging warmth away,
And sound and light are for another day –
Tonight we leave into the silent dark.
I love this poem Jay. Thank you for giving me the flavour and intent of a service I was unable to get to. I particularly like your metricsl work. My favourite bit in this one is the silently criss crossing servers.
ReplyDeleteDid you intend to drop a syllable in the penultimate line?
Also I personally would prefer 'bleak and naked' to 'bleaker naked' as I initially read 'bleaker' as 'beaker' and then could not shake the image of a baby's sippy cup. Perhaps this is because one anticipates a noun after the indefinite article, or perhaps because 'bleaker' is comparative and 'naked' is not - in which case perhaps a comma between would fix it?
Actually I hadn't spotted the nine syllable line -– probably because of finishing this late at night after a lot of work . I may fix that, although it's still a pentameter with the strong, long first syllable probably enough to sustain a foot. I don't really agree about 'bleaker' – there is a comma after it anyway, and I intended it to suggest a before and after effect: the faith of Good Friday is bleaker than what went before if Lent has done its work.
ReplyDeleteI've now revised it, making line 13 a proper iambic pentameter and tweaking a couple of other things I wasn't happy with.
ReplyDeleteIt's great.
ReplyDelete