Bibliofreakblog

FreeVerse: Ash Wednesday

Since today is Ash Wednesday, I thought I’d go with a little Thomas Merton for FreeVerse.  

Oh, and btw, I didn’t post a FreeVerse last week, because Cara put the Mr. Linky up but was too busy to put up a proper post, and since I was sort of busy, I was all, “well, if she’s not posting a poem, I’m not gonna…”

But back to today.  I’m not giving up anything for Lent.  My mom always told me that it’s better to do something good than to give something up (like, clean your room every day).  So I’m going to work out at least 20 minutes every day (’cept Sundays, as that is the Lenten loophole, and you know, you’re supposed to rest on the Sabbath or whatever).  I didn’t go get ashes today, because I don’t really belong to any church…I just never found one in Seattle that I really liked.  When I worked at the hospital, I used to go during lunch to the Chapel on Ash Wednesday, which, seriously, you have no idea just how convenient having that at work can be.

But the poem!  I will admit, I hardly understand this poem, and it sounds like it is more about Good Friday than Ash Wednesday to me.  Maybe it was written on Ash Wednesday?  Oh, and where it says “traveller’s” at the bottom, for whatever reason, it’s supposed to have two Ls, so that’s [sic], but it would ruin the poem to put that there.

“Ash Wednesday” by Thomas Merton

The naked traveller,
Stretching, against the iron dawn, the bowstrings of
     his eyes,
Starves on the mad sierra.

But the sleepers,
Prisoners in a lovely world of weeds,
Make a small, red cry,
And change their dreams.

Proud as the mane of the whinnying air,
Yet humble as the flakes of water
Or the chips of the stone sun, the traveller
Is nailed to the hill by the light of March’s razor;

And when the desert barks, in a rage of love
For the noon of the eclipse,
He lies with his throat cut, in a frozen crater.

Then the sleepers,
Prisoners of a moonward power of tides,
Slain by the stillness of their own reflections,
Sit up, in their graves, with a white cry,
And die of terror at the traveller’s murder