April 17: Seven More Days, Psalm 40, Weaving, Music

It is Palm Sunday.  After today, I have seven more poems to write.  That will complete my Lenten obligation.  My psalms have not all been about praise, as I initially intended.  However, I do think this little series of poems more accurately reflects the make-up of the actual Book of Psalms, which is full of praise, sorrow, anger, despair, and every other human emotion in between.

Today's service at church was really joyful, full of good, rocking music and palm waving.  It filled with me with happiness.  That may sound old-fashioned or sentimental.  I don't care.  I felt a spiritual lift from raising my voice in praise.  It was great.

When I was a kid, my sisters used to take the palms we got on Palm Sunday and weave them into different shapes.  I remember crosses and lanyards.  It always amazed me.  I was never able to learn the technique.  But I remember these palms being around the house all year long, behind pictures of the Sacred Heart and crucifixes.  They would be dry and yellow by the next Palm Sunday, when they would be replaced.  Those weavings were the inspiration behind today's psalm.  (I was going to write about Easter chocolate, but this idea sort of took over when I started working.)

On Tuesday night, I'm going to an open mic poetry night at a local establishment.  I'm going to read a few of my psalms.  I guess I've become a topic of interest in my Cajun friend's graduate-level poetry class.  The fact that I've been able to write 40-plus poems in as many days astounds some of her students.  I will have to say that, some days, I almost came up empty-handed.  But not today.

Psalm number 40 from Saint Marty.  Fun with palms.

Psalm 40:  Palm Sunday

On Palm Sunday, I sat during Mass,
Watched my sisters mold, caress,
Bend thin fronds, yellow, green,
Reminders of sand, of desert rock.
They split, braided, transformed
Those palms into lanyards, honeycomb.
Crosses.  Peacocks.  Hummingbirds.
Sheep.  Hands with spikes in them.  Deer.
It was like watching stop-motion films.
Robin eggs hatching, rose bushes blooming.
As the priest stalked church aisles,
Incense heady as fresh-cut grass,
I marveled at simple acts of creation
Taking place beside me.  My sister Ruth said
Let there be rhino.  Twist.  Fold.  Tie.
There was rhino.  It was as much
A miracle to my eight-year-old heart
As the story of the man nailed
To a tree, dying, then rising in silver
Light three days later.  Even now,
After thirty-some years, I see
A pile of palms in church, have faith
It will grow, breathe, advance
Toward the altar.  A throng as great
As the animals lining up for Noah's ark
While thunder, lightning broke the clouds.
Or flocks of meadowlarks on Easter
Morning, singing sweet hosannas
In the pearl dawn.

Cock-a-doodle-doo!