Stranger

He crumbles bread—the well-intentioned one
Squeezes olive pits beneath his thumb,
Why invite a stranger here for bread
When only Friday since our Master’s dead ?

Shadows grow and fall—do not go hence
Cover us with night’s deliverance,
That day may never come may daylight cease
So much better hid from the police.

Now the stranger opens up his hands
Reveals the blackened apertures of wounds
All our napes that bristle with our fear
Have understood what consequence is here—

Sitting in the shadows of a room
It is the flesh of Him that we consume.



Souls

Unapproachable dim star above the tabernacle
You bring the dead to us in dreams
Those reconciled to death
To see we are not reconciled
Not knowing that we are signs
And sacraments to them, the living penitents

The candle burns above us, now behind us
Whispering, but when we turn, the darkness
Takes its place—
Those who are the living
Hover and address us in the watch of candles
White shadows of the lighted cross
And we the dead surmise that something present
But unseen
Has spoken words addressed by light:
“You are the dead but shall be living,
Watching in the night”



Self-steering

The helmsman beats the sea
With foam and milkwhite jade
And every wind of torsion
Receives the helm’s correction

No twisting or evasion
Eludes the plunging track
No providential sin
Avoids the chasing wind

Maintaining his direction
The helmsman steers the ship
And nothing can deflect
Not force or intellect

No compass does he need
His rudder is the Creed