IMAGES, REFLECTIONS -1

 These poems are arranged in the order of their writing, from 2011 to 2021.  Some have appeared on this blog before.

 WITNESS

 The Women - Mk 16:8, Mt 28:9

We came away from his empty tomb

Confused and distraught.

“Good morning,” he said,

And it was good

To awaken to new life.

The Sentries - Mt 28:12

Brighter than ten thousand suns

Light clave us; thus he passed

‘Twixt our divided selves.

Nor threat nor silver of yours

Can make us whole again.

 The Men – Lk 24:13-32

We walked beside him

With a burning in our hearts,

But doubt rose like smoke to blind us

Until bread once more he broke.

 The Believer

I was not there to suffer so,

Know such joy inexpressible,

But every year he comes again

My life to renew –

Am I too dead to notice?

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

SYMMETRY

Joseph of David’s House

Stood beside Mary,

Beside her stood he.

“Give me my son

Into my arms”,

To him said she.

Oh the years they pass,

The decades they flow,

From cradle to grave

Must we all go.

Joseph of Arimathea

Stood beside Mary,

Beside her stood he.

“Give me my son

Into my arms”,

To him said she.

Oh the years they pass,

The decades they flow,

From smiles to tears

Must we all go. Amen.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

ANNUNCIATION by DOMENICO VENEZIANO

The maiden was at her prayers,

silent, removed

from garden path and barrèd door.

No whisper of wing, no footprint on path,

Gabriel kneels before her,

wondrous greeting giving;

bringing the Word to her open heart.

 

In time she will bring forth

the Timeless One, incarnate.

But now in a quiet corner

she bows to her God within,

and the angel kneels to both.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

EASTER MORNING

His mother was at prayer;

a sword run through her heart

sharp with words remembered:

Be it done to me –

Do as he says;

Into thy hands –

It is accomplished.

 

The sword, on a sudden,

became a ray of light:

her son stood before her, silent,

as when at first he came to her.

“Hail Mary,” his hands said,

a smile impending on his lips -

as on hers amid tears.

“Behold,” her own hands spoke,

“the handmaid of the Lord.”

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

CHRIST AT THE SEA OF GALILEE

 A long night fishing and empty nets;

it had happened before.  Again he stood there,

on the shore, feet in the water; would he walk

towards us as wind whipped the waves?

“Cast your net to starboard,” he said,

as before.  So we did.

“It is the Lord,” I said and Peter leaped,

wading towards him.

“Come, children, have breakfast,” said the Lord.

It was supper before,

and where did he get grilled fish – not ours

(our net now full) – fresh loaves, a fire?

 

“Do you love me?” he asked Peter, thrice;

who answered thrice, “Yes, Lord”.

It rolled away the stone of fear,

and shame, and pain.

No cock crew, but far above a trumpet called,

and all was new again.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

THE MERCHANT

 A strange meeting it was; I remember it well.

The lamp burning low, wife and children in bed,

About to lay my pen down, I heard him knock,

The gatekeeper’s son - as I saw, going to the door.

“Well, at this hour what brings you here, boy?”

“A man seeking shelter; father sent me, sir,”

“He knows what to do,” impatient, I broke in;

“But,” the lad hesitated, “of David’s lineage he said,”

Burst out, “there’s a child and its mother...”

His eyes implored.

“You’re a fool, and your father’s another.”

Yet, I know not why, I went.

“I am Yosef,” the man said, grey of face, with eyes deep wells,

“Yosef ben Yakob from Bethlehem; of David’s line.”

“A long journey to make with a wife, a young child,

Why make it?”  His eyes compelled me:

“The Most High’s command,” was all he said.

 

A movement caught my eye: they had raised bowed heads,

The child and its mother – such eyes they had!

Unfathomable, dark, but a star shone in each;

Without a word spoken I knew what I must do,

Yet I asked, “Your wife and child?”

“Maryam,” he replied, “the child was named Yeshua,”

He looked far away, remembering.

 

Gruffly, for a part of me jibbed at the compulsion,

I commanded the lad who had brought me there:

“Lead them to the store-room; it has some space, some sacks,

The beast you may stable,” I turned away, tired.

Turned back, recalling duty, “Peace be with you,” I said.

 

“Peace to you and your house,” the man inclined his  head.

The child looked at me, solemn – and this

I remember – raised his hand as though to bless.

 

A strange meeting, I told you, and I never knew why.

Yosef ben Yakob, Yeshua, Maryam - only Moshe was wanting

And that my name supplied.

Is it the reason my good sense I laid by,

Like a fanciful woman gave them shelter in my home

That dark, chilly night?  “What was that?”

My wife asked, half asleep.

“Some people seeking refuge.”  “You gave it?”

“There was a mother and child –”

But she was asleep again, and soon after so was I.

What happened later is lost – I am now very old –

Yet this I still remember, and why I do not know.

 

Tell me of this new Teacher, Yeshua son of Yosef –

To us in Egypt news comes late, comes slow.

 Note on THE MERCHANT

 A poem by Clive Sansom, The Innkeeper’s Wife, one of a set of poems titled The Witnesses, made an impression on me when I first read it almost forty years ago.  Today I find it not quite as satisfying as I once did.  It is fantasy, not truth, and I can’t see that it offers anything to my reflection on the Incarnation and Nativity as, for instance, T.S. Eliot’s Journey of the Magi does.

 The Flight into Egypt gets little attention when compared to the Nativity and to the visit of the Magi, or even the Massacre of the Innocents which followed that visit.  Oh, certainly artists have made much play with it, but what nonsense their depictions are, one and all.  If I just think of what it meant to fly in the middle of the night, no word to a soul, taking only what the two adults could carry besides the small child, travel through bandit-infested terrain, with only one object in mind – to get away from Herod as quickly and as far away as they could – it is a most sobering thought.  I doubt that, for over a year after Jesus’ birth, Joseph kept a donkey stabled against the possibility of a long journey to be made.  He could not hire a donkey in the middle of the night without explanation.  How did they make their way to Egypt, on foot without meeting with disaster?  Probably by joining a caravan.  What must it have been like to arrive in Egypt as practically beggars, Joseph and Mary, descendants of King David, with the Son of the Most High to care for?

 What would they find in Egypt, or rather whom did they expect to find?  As a matter of fact, they would find a flourishing community of Jews, many of them merchant-traders.  Just as a caravan of traders carried Joseph son of Jacob (Yosef son of Yakob) into Egypt, a caravan was most likely the means by which another Joseph son of Jacob with Mary (Maryam/Miriam) his wife, and Jesus (Yeshua – the shortened form of Jehoshua/Joshua) made their way safely to Egypt.  Joseph may, just possibly, have known the name of some merchant-trader to approach for assistance; one must remember that Nazareth was in Galilee – “Galilee of the nations” – and foreigners passed through frequently, whether trading, or as invading armies from the north.  But I don’t place much store by such a supposition.  Whatever it is, these were refugees, and at first forced to beg for assistance - such persons as these three, Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus!

 That a merchant named Moses (Moshe) was the one who sheltered them is a poetic fancy used to underline the fact of a prophetic connection between the Joseph of the Old Testament and Joseph of the New.  (By the way, note that both were dreamers.)  Moses had promised that one day another prophet would come, much greater than he was.  Bear in mind that Joshua, too, as successor to Moses, was a saviour of the people.  And Miriam the sister of Moses was a prophetess, a figure of considerable importance.

 These are the ingredients of what is a reflection on an aspect of the Nativity story that gets little attention, and yet is so full of meaning, apart from being moving.  Poems are no longer always expected to have rhymes or even rhythm; jingles have both.  But poems, like this one, do use symbol and allusion, my particular characteristics.  In this regard, the artist who painted the icon called the Vladimir Mother of God, placed a star on her head and over her heart.  This was to signify the in-dwelling of God in her (“full of grace, the Lord is with thee”).  Therefore the stars which the merchant sees in the eyes of the mother and child.

© 2022 by Ruth Heredia

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