Love, Sin, and Death: Reflecting on Ash Wednesday

Ordinary Time
Shrove Tuesday
The Edge of Elfland
Manchester, NH

Dearest Readers,

As you know, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Today, on the whole, I hope you are glutting yourselves with pancakes and meat, reminding yourself one last time that Christianity, at its core, is a festal religion. But I also hope you’re preparing yourselves for the Great Fast and thus for the resurrection of Christ. One of the things I am doing to help me prepare, is to write a sonnet every week reflecting on some aspect of Lent. Some may be about the feast days that occur during this time (so expect a poem on St. Patrick) and others may be just about my personal experiences. I haven’t shared much of my poetry here. This is because I still hold some hopes of publishing my poetry and most magazines or journals won’t accept previously published material, and thus posting them here would count. However, as a check to my ego and reminder that I am not, yet, a great poet (nor may I ever be), I will be posting one poem a week here. I hope you find them helpful as you journey through Lent.

“Ash Wednesday”

The love that moves the sun and other stars
Has moved me now unto my very death.
It moves my lungs to take their final breath.
No more fasting, weeping, mourning, are
Able to do me good. Just like Macbeth,
My sins are my undoing. For prayer no breath
Is left to save my soul not gone so far.
But then, the ashes touch my head, and I
Am brought to life. I can return with heart
Made clean and whole by the joy of the Lord of all,
Whose unending love makes sin and darkness die.
But I must repent and keep no little part
Of myself. For God above has bought us all.

Sincerely,
David Russell Mosley