by Jenna K Funkhouser
I.
this is the night we walk backwards into blindness
into silence
this is the daybreak we bear unrecognized hosannas on our burning tongues.
II.
it is walking into a grave within oneself
entering this cavern within the ribs
it is the shouting of men gone mad with the world
the tearing of something irrevocable.
III.
everyday he said the world was given the bitter cup of its sorrows and pain
and everyday mankind would dash the cup to the sordid ground in rebellion.
and within the man there grew a ravenous thirst for the clear, sweet cordial of independence.
and within the cup was the wine of love waiting for someone to drink it.
IV.
oh my children, love the world –
love the bright glad world and the world of all its sorrows.
do not be afraid.
V.
and then there came the night when love was an earthen basin
when the wild, dark tremors of the world reached out like roots into eternity.
someone drinks the cup.
the late dusk trembles and blooms.
VI.
you must let yourself be pierced to be healed
you must accept the lancing of this universal wound.
stay so close to the suffering that it transfigures you.
watch the holy one open wide his body like a flame and cauterize our dying by his own.
VII.
love, he said love even in your hopelessness.
for underneath the shroud of shamed earth life has found its way into all the cracks and corners of this darkness
filled them with the sleeping bulbs of resurrection.
even the abyss will bloom and sing.
Jenna K Funkhouser is a poet and artist living in Portland, Oregon. Her poetry has recently been published by Geez Magazine, the Saint Katherine Review, and As It Ought To Be, among others; her first book of poetry, Pilgrims I Have Been, was released in October 2020.
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