Days and Times. Paul K. Hooker
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when they found the body gone,
but the last pregnant day of possible,
uterus of a new creation,
cervix of eternal stone.
Deep inside the shining darkness
believing dies and trust, unborn,
unknown and knowing, waits alone.
Mr. H’s Ordination
Do you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the Church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
—the first question for ordination in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Well, do you?
It’s not a choosing, or a being chosen,
not a choice but the end of choices.
It’s the wild mounting desperation
of holding your breath under water
until the will submits, is overcome
by the mindless lungs’ irrational demand.
Even if it drowns you like a rat.
Do you trust like that, Mr. H?
Who cares a fig for Lords and Heads?
This is existential, not ecclesial.
We’re talking oxygen, on those days
when a body’s desperate to breathe,
days when everything comes crashing,
when the sacred All-in-All amounts to nothing
and Christ’s Body yields its neck to the guillotine.
Do you trust when times are lean, Mr. H?
Three in one and one in three: an axiom
of theology. But the only Trinity
we trust is world and death and fire
(as often smothered as smoldering).
In the pitch-black cave-dark, we intuit
light. Reach out and touch the triune rock:
creation’s basement, our prison, and reprieve.
Is that what you believe, Mr. H?
These skittish truths we harness to our stars
come uneasily to words; they bolt
like rabbits down a hole or flit
like wrens to branches just beyond our reach.
Best teach the tongue restraint and watch your feet
along this darkling path we’re following.
It’s easier to stumble than to rise.
Will that suffice to make you wise, Mr. H?
It Is No Small Thing
It is no small thing to say
god bless this our land.
Blessing might well be
curse when pronounced
by the wrong god.
It is no small thing to name
the child, god-with-us.
Like a gladius
it cuts both ways
when rightly swung.
It is no small thing to cry
Hosanna, when we
can so rarely think
of things from which
we need saving.
It is no small thing to claim
he is risen when
anyone can see
the stone-sealed tomb
is undisturbed.
Compline
To the star-flecked Darkness
he said, for no apparent reason:
I have nothing of any use
to say.
The night went on
around him, solar winds
chasing constellations through
the corridors of shadow
to obscure destinations.
Aware of his irrelevance,
he remembered fervent days
when he prayed prayers
that mattered, moved the world.
But these night-winged words
are just balloons inflated
with helium-colored hopes,
full of squeaky certainties;
when they burst, as they will
if ever they rise high enough,
the Darkness laughs.
He thought,
maybe I make the Darkness
laugh. At least that’s something,
isn’t it?
Gods of Small Things
Let us be gods of small things,
lords of mice and roaches,
bastard sons and daughters
of happy, smiling gods
who bless their acolytes
with touchdowns and close-in parking.
Let us stand to the ends of things:
parting notes of postludes
in empty sanctuaries,
apologetic exits
whispered at the door,
the echo of the deadbolt.
Let us walk the hallways after
light and hope burn out,
read from silent liturgy
prayers addressed to no one,
hear from mislaid hymnals
music no one sings.
Let us raise the chain link fence,
last fence around the Table
that bars the way to all
lest any come unworthy
to take the meal, until
the meal is taken from us.
Let us be the wrecking-ball;
swung from moral heights
we bring down the house,
then hang condemned when done,
the evidence against us
stone not left on stone.
But let us be at last the rain
that falls on wrack and ruin,
washes out the stain
—see, even now it falls—
and waters wheat and vine
and pools in broken fonts.
A Prayer Before Advent