SABADO DE GLORIA: THIS TOMB IS A WOMB

SABADO DE GLORIA: THIS TOMB IS A WOMB

"What misery to be afraid of death./  What wretchedness, to believe only in what can be proven."---Mary Oliver

He chafed at the two-and-a-half-hour service,

And at night yet: a vigil, the pastor called it.

Why a vigil? Who are we losing early sleep

Over? You should not have come to church

This evening with a sour heretic’s spleen.

You put the heathens to shame, his spouse

Now sounding like his shadow-self, would

Most certainly scold him if he dared protest.

Why this vigil? We have lived with this truth

For centuries now.  Why behave like we have

To prove that He prevailed over crucifixion

Unto death? That grave stone moved during


The centurion’s watch? Not even his twelve

Comrades could do that. This tomb is a womb.

What in the name of the saints did you say?

His wife would madly bellow. A womb tomb?

But he would sheepishly answer: Am poetic.

I mean all types of dying or death entombed,

But this was the true womb of life and living.

In this cave all the world’s hideous hate died

So that it may become the womb of a Rock,

Of enduring love, against whose ramparts no

Malice, mayhem, nor vicious evil shall ever

Prevail. She said: they do rhyme, don’t they?

---Albert B. Casuga

04-08-13

 

 This is poem #8 in our poem-a-day celebration of the National Poetry Month this April.