Here’s a poem for Ash Wednesday from Lisa Caldwell-Reiss.
Ash Wednesday Poem
Will stopping this
Wednesday to receive
the sign of the cross in
dirty ash
Upon tired foreheads
really make a difference
Mark us for a moment, a
season, a lifetime?
Will this emblem on our
own skin
Soak in where words have
not
and choices have not?
I wonder at its hope and
purpose.
People of candle flame
and tongues of fire,
Walkers on water who
have dipped
beneath the cleansing
surface,
Taking a night to dabble
in oily ash and stain.
Would that Sunday, yet
two months away,
dawn at all, if not as
bright,
with trumpet call to new
life if we could not
stand in this other
truth, as true
as resurrection but more
gritty?
Does its honest presence
make the revelation
The breath, the rising
sun possible?
We stand with grimy
hands, flinching,
Drawing back from the
itchy sensation
Of ash and oil and human
nature.
Holding ourselves still
And breathing deeply
until, we can be,
wholly in this grubby
skin,
Waiting, with creation
for the water and the flame.
Tossing scraps of paper
sin into a smoky burner
Watching as they are
consumed,
disintegrate and rise,
Prayers for healing,
longing, hope, to God.
We laugh, upside down
and unrelenting,
A laugh like Easter
morning.
