April 17: 800 Years, Resurrection, "Vigil"

Tonight, I have a poem in honor of 800 years of beauty and music and prayer and sacredness.  This Holy Week, there are ashes and smoke and sorrow.  But there will be resurrection.  That is the promise of Easter.

Saint Marty believes this with his whole heart.

Vigil

by:  Martin Achatz

When my grandmother died, my dad

Sat by her bed all night, recited

Rosaries, listened as her breaths

Became lighter, lighter, the space

In between, longer and longer,

Like waves on the beach of Kesennuma

The day before the tsunami, soft

Swells and troughs breaking on sand.

Hiss.  Silence.  Hiss.  Greater silence.

My dad kept vigil, waited for the dawn,

The last wave, the greatest silence.

The night before my wife gave birth

To our daughter, the hospital room

Was filled with family, friends.

We took turns holding my wife’s hand

When the pain overcame her,

Preparing her body to deliver new life.

Outside, snow tore through darkness

As we kept vigil, waited for sunrise.

This Holy Saturday, I will go to church

After night falls.  In the black pews,

I will wait for the priest to light

The first fires of Easter, for the flame

To pass from candle to candle

Until the walls, pillars, ceiling

Of the sanctuary flood with light.

I will go with my daughter,

Keep vigil with her, wait

For the church to bloom

With bells and incense and hymns,

Psalms of deserts and seas,

Hunger and manna.

I will sing with her, loud,

Joyful songs, calling all the children

Out to the playground, under the stars,

To slide, to clap, to dance, to shout,

To swing so high their feet

Kick the last breath of night

To the first cry of the morning.