The Road to Emmaus

It's not the friendliest of villages, Emmaus,

the people parochial, as desert people are,

bound up in the herding and bartering of beasts,

the vines on its terraces encumbered with thorns,

the children in the market roasting a sparrow,

hardly the place to expect revelation,

if revelation's the word – I leave that to you.

Not that we'd never believed, my partner and I,

not that, but leaving Jerusalem on business,

with news of the death, or perhaps I should say

the absence among us of someone like a God,

we felt at a loss, and not a little diminished,

and talk as we might, of covenants and creeds,

our thoughts came round to the prices of wool,

the bundles of raisins and dates in our panniers.

Besides, by then we were tired of religion,

what with the heat, the dust, a mule going lame,

and the stranger who'd fallen in with our journey

going on about prophets, the life in that death,

a vision which didn't make much sense at the time

but stirred our hearts greatly, before we tired,

and hungry and irritable, slapping at the flies,

entered Emmaus and tethered our beasts.

That it should, that it could have been otherwise

presumes, I think, too much of human piety

and grants few gaps for love's irruption

unbidden, uncalculated into our lives.

His hands, the strong sunburned fingers

breaking the rough brown bread of the tavern

and writing a cross in the spaces between us,

above the wine in the cracked clay goblets,

the dim yellow sputter of the wick in its oil,

his hands first brought it home to us, 

in Emmaus.

By Christopher Michael Zithulele Mann (1948-2021), a South African poet and playwright

Santa, Santa | Leunig

Sabbaths

"New Collected Poems"
Wendell Berry. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2013 

TS Eliot -- "Journey of the Magi"

‘Journey of the Magi’ by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) wrote ‘Journey of the Magi’ in 1927, on a single day, one Sunday after church. You can read the poem here. 

‘Journey of the Magi’ is told from the perspective of one of the Magi (commonly known as the ‘Three Wise Men’, though the Bible makes no mention of their number or gender) visiting the infant Christ. The poem examines the implications that the advent of Christ had for the other religions of the time. Eliot converted to Christianity in 1927, the same year he wrote ‘Journey of the Magi’, so this was an apt poem for him to have written shortly after his acceptance into the Church of England. Here it is read by the incomparable Sir Alec Guinness:

It is as if Infancy were the Whole of Incarnation

Luci Shaw (born 1928 in London, England) is a Christian poet. Shaw studied at Wheaton College, Illinois and is now writer in Residence at Regent College, Vancouver. She lectures on art and spirituality, the Christian imagination and poetry as an aid to artistic and spiritual growth. She is a members of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Bellingham, Washington. Here's one of her thought provoking poems about the Incarnation:

It is as if Infancy were the Whole of Incarnation. 

One time of the year the new-born child is everywhere,

planted in madonnas' arms hay mows, stables in palaces or farms, or quaintly, under snowed gables,

gothic angular or baroque plump,

naked or elaborately swathed,

encircled by Della Robia wreaths,

garnished with whimsical

partridges and pears,

drummers and drums,

lit by oversize stars,

partnered with lambs,

peace doves, sugar plums,

bells, plastic camels in sets of three

as if these were what we need

for eternity.

The Donkey.

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), gives us a glimpse into the mind of one of the lesser-considered characters in the drama of Jesus’ entering Jerusalem. Chesterton’s little poem is entitled c

When fishes flew and forests walked,
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood,
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry,
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
Of all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient, crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

outwitted

Dead Poets Society - Mr. Keating's Walt Whitman Speech

O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;

Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;   
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who  more faithless?)   
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;   
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;          
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;   
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?   
   
                                                        Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;   
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.