As the Church prepares to ponder the Passion and the Resurrection of Jesus in the days to come, we invite our readers to enter into these mysteries by way of two poems written by Rita A. Simmonds.
A contemporary Catholic poet of note, Ms. Simmonds has published several collections of poetry, among them Souls and the City (2013), Bitterness and Sweet Love: The Way of the Cross and Other Lenten Poems (2014), and He Called: Selected Poems (2020). Her poetry—spare, incisive, and steeped in silence and prayer—has garnered multiple accolades at the annual Catholic Press Association Awards and appears regularly in Magnificat magazine.
The Fourteenth Station: Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb
The Word
has weight
pondered unbroken
carefully carried
quietly placed
solemnly sealed
remembered
awaited
revealed—
The Word has
weight
seeded
and sown
each step
on its own is
The Way.[1]
The Word Made Flesh
I
Nothing comes before you
whom nothing came before.
Your being, a silent orb
spinning into darkness,
fire to a cold star,
earthquake to sea,
tsunami to land,
invisible blast
over everything made
through you
to the sound of your voice—
a promise posed,
a tuning fork.
Minds enlarge,
kings engage
a constant course.
You re-enter time to await.
Word suspended
on a Virgin’s acceptance—
II
Yes, and you enter
infinitesimal
into her darkness—
the space you created.
Your emptying unites
to her purest cell
the size of a seed
clinging to her wall.
It forms flesh,
curls around a red flame
fanning fingers and toes,
liver and lungs,
your blazing heart beats,
feeding on your mother’s blood.
Her water breaks.
For the first time, you cry.
What can you know,
you who knew everything?
It’s cold.
You have no memory,
lost in your mother’s eyes.
You, the reason for everything,
must grow to the age of reason
and leave your family grieving
when first you hear
your Father’s call.
III
“Why have you done this to us?”
Your mother asks.
You speak strange yet simple phrases.
You say you say what you hear.
It is not your time
when the bride and groom
run out of wine.
Yet you bend yourself,
spend yourself
at your mother’s request.
The best is for last.
She enters your darkness,
the space you created for her.
“Father, forgive them.”
Your heart beats
beneath the beating,
flares at each fall,
combusts as you’re lifted up
on the dry wood.
You thirst. You burn.
The Father’s voice—unheard.
For the last time, you cry.
Your flesh hangs.
Your mother folds.
Blood and water explode
from your side.
Your spirit descends
into the depths of time
to free the prophets and kings,
the enlightened minds.
Your flesh is lowered
into your mother’s lap.
How well she knows
your fingers and toes,
the shape of your eyes, and
Yes, the blood from your veins
that blankets your flesh.
There is nothing left
but to rise.
[1] Rita A. Simmonds, Bitterness and Sweet love: The Way of the Cross and Other Lenten Poems (2014), 15.