Today, National Poetry Month, my Viral Dailies poetry features and Holy Week converge. As such, this entire week will feature poetry that helps us turn our attentions in that direction. Palm Sunday of course recognizes that day when Jesus enters Jerusalem, riding the back of a donkey. It was an act of subversion, reversal, theology; it was, ultimately, an act of peace. On Palm Sunday, God in Jesus says ‘no’ to empire and ‘yes’ to the communion of the lost-and-found. In this act, Jesus pictures himself ruling not as dictator or caesar, but as Prince of Peace.
Today, I give you an older poem suitable to the day. Let’s have a blessed Holy Week together, sharing sacred thought and memory, and swallowing whole the hope it brings as we huddle in our homes, hiding from the COVID-19 scourge.
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the stones know something we do not
their tears now stain a palm-laden street
and cries reserved for a different day
burst out
unsettled
unstoppable
unreserved
for today only the stones understand
who rides upon them
(c)Robert Alan Rife, 4/13/14
Image found here
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