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St.Mary

SONNETS FOR MARY (concluding)

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GOING TO THE TOMB

You and the other Marys, Joanna, Salome—

you went to the tomb, with fragrant offerings

to honor the dead and mourn the sufferings

that buried all joy the day before yesterday.

You went to the tomb, unsure of gaining entrance,

unsure you could complete this final gift,

unsure that any rite would ever lift

your sorrow or restore the swaying balance

of your life. And yet, you went—and found the stone

rolled back and the angel waiting for you there—

oh! known and proven perilous messenger—

to greet you and to tell you he was gone.

Uncertain still, you turned back slowly toward the world

till, meeting him on the path, your tight-clenched hope at last unfurled. 

SONNETS FOR MARY (cont.)

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CRUCIFIXION

And there you stood, your little group of five

or six, as near as you dared, with the restive crowd

around you spitting and shouting out aloud

their insults, trying to prove themselves alive

by lording it over men condemned to die.

The women stood close to protect you. Young John,

of all the men, stood by you now alone.

You stood there as the sun crept through the sky.

And Jesus, failing, turned his head to you

and said (as if it were needed!), “Behold your son!”

“I see him too well,” you thought. But then to John,

“Behold your mother!” giving him to you. 

And here you found a sign that even in death

he gave you love and care with his last breath.

SONNETS FOR MARY (cont.)

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THE WAY OF THE CROSS

What heavier grief than watching your firstborn

dragged through charades of justice, wrung with pain

and weighed down with the cross on which he’ll hang,

limping to Golgotha? Your soul was torn

by every struggling step. You could do nothing

for him. And then—scarcely to be believed—

that African the Romans dragooned retrieved

the cross he’d dropped and bore it up like something

holy—alms to him who suffered, a grace

to you who suffered, too. And you found strength

to walk behind them down the terrible length

of road that led you to the killing place.

“Be it unto me according to your word.”

“And for your heart the piercing of a sword.”

SONNETS FOR MARY (cont.)

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“WHO IS MY MOTHER?”

They said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you.” And he replied, “Who is my mother or my brothers?” And looking at those seated around him, he says, “”See! my mother and my brothers!” Mark 3:32-33

And why, then, did you try to call him back—

that time you sought him out, you and his brothers,

and he replaced the lot of you with those others

that sat around him? Had your faith gone slack?

the memory of the angel’s words grown dim

after these thirty years? Or was it sorrow

for all the dangers threatening on the morrow

that prompted you to make this claim on him?

And then he un-sonned himself, un-mothered you,

sundered the priority of birth,

and made a new-formed family on earth,

sign of God’s will to make the world anew.

And you’re the mother of it all—at cost

of that first motherhood you now had lost. 

SONNETS FOR MARY (cont.)

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HE CURED MANY WHO WERE SICK

There was so much to cause you joy—the crowd

that thirsted for his voice, the people healed,

the hungry satisfied in a barren field

with bread, his praise everywhere ringing loud.

So sudden his success, so unexpected,

it seemed to form an ever-rising tide,

never to ebb, never to subside

till it should bring him to the throne predicted.

But what to you were thrones? To you the story

of blinded eyes now seeing, of frozen arms

loosened to life, deliverance from harms

of soul and spirit—this was your hoped-for glory.

The labor of God’s love took up its thread

among those whom the world had left for dead.

SONNETS FOR MARY (cont.)

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CANA

When water turned to wine, everything changed.

Before, you were still his mother, he your son.

And even then, at first, he seemed to have done

just what you asked—a kindness you arranged

to spare your hosts disgrace. And yet, you knew

his purpose lay beyond. The wine—such wine!—

was not a stopgap kindness, but a sign

that he was bent on making all things new.

Yes, you had brought him thus far. Now the hour

had come when your consent to God’s strange plan

must come to flower through his mind and hand—

the generous God made known through works of power.

Henceforth, your role was witness, even though

as mother you would still have tears to sow.

SONNETS FOR MARY (cont.)

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IN JERUSALEM AT THE FEAST

The child was bright and eager enough to learn

and had a knack of leading that was thought

natural to a firstborn. He was not

troublesome. She saw how he could turn

with ease to those around him and attract

their kind regard. His elders were bemused,

perhaps, but very few would have refused

to speak with him, encourage, or correct. 

Nothing prepared you for the grinding fear

he gave you the day he stayed behind, the day

you finally found him standing in the array

of learned men, conversing as a peer.

“It is my father’s business,” he said. And you knew

the time when he was merely your son was through. 

SONNETS FOR MARY (cont.)

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IN NAZARETH

Coming again to the place that was your home 

before the weeks of Bethlehem, the years

of Egypt, you will have found some cause for tears—

tributes for burials to which you could not come—

and cause for laughter, too, for celebrating

all that brings joy to human life again.

Exiled no more, you could say a free amen

to the gifts of the God who never stops creating.

You governed your house, conversed with neighbors and friends,

kept an eye on dooryard and children, gave

them their chores and praised their faithful work, then waved

them out to their childhood games in day’s end.

If ever, in this world, you had a taste

of ordinary peace, it was in this place. 

SONNETS FOR MARY (cont.)

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THE SHEPHERDS

The shepherds smelled of sheep and grass and earth,

yet they had seen God’s angels in the night.

With eyes reflecting heaven’s own delight,

they came to seek your almost hidden birth.

The angels danced and played and sang to them

and showed them how to find the lowly place

where God held audience with our human race—

and all created things—in Bethlehem.

They knelt down, then, with awe and growing joy

to pray your health and tell you of the way

the angels sang and how the light of day

broke through their midnight—and to praise your boy.

And you were filled with wonder—all the more

that God had first revealed it to the poor.

SONNETS FOR MARY (cont.)

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NATIVITY

Heavy with child, by wavering hope sustained, 

you made the trek to Bethlehem—a town

so overwhelmed with strangers it retained

no room for welcome. Birthing, you lay down

in a cave, out of the wind—a roof, some straw,

and Joseph to call the midwife in and stand 

by anxiously. A little fire to thaw

the chill and heat the water. And the hand

of God near hidden in the dark. Your part

to be delivered of the promised child

and hold in your lap the mystery, born not

of the will of flesh or man, but of the wild

desire of God to be held in your caress

and enter human life in helplessness.