Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Samantha DeFlitch
Resurrection
During Holy Week, I have a practice of sharing one poem per day on Twitter that I feel encapsulates the nature of that day. One poet's work usually appears on both Holy Thursday and Good Friday: W.S. Merwin. Merwin's work has a huge range, but to me, there's so much forward movement and also cyclical movement in his poems; while the world pushes ahead, the world also returns to itself.
I find a lot of comfort, but also unease, in the week after Holy Week; yes, there is resurrection, and the alleluia has returned, but it's hard to keep from looking over my shoulder. Just last week, we had the Palm Sunday, and then the push further into the night; the agony in the garden; the crucifixion and its quiet reverberation throughout Holy Saturday. And the nature of the liturgical year means that, even amid the joy of the fifty days of the Easter season, I know that, eventually, Good Friday will be with us again. The year is always coming back to itself.
So, where does that leave us? How can we let ourselves take time to be present in the joy of resurrection, without looking forward to the hardship we know is coming down the line? I don't know. But I do find myself returning to poetry, and especially to Merwin, to provide some sort of an answer. In his poem "The Solstice" he notes:
We watch the bright birds in the morning
we hope for the quiet
daytime together
the year turns to air
but we are together the whole night
with the sun still going away
and the year
coming back
I suppose amid the uncertainty of the looping year, there is, paradoxically, certainty. There is grounding in the "bright birds in the morning" and in the sun, and in "we are together" in the darkness of the night. There's joy in moments we share with each other, in the bright flash of a wren at the feeder. Joy in being here: here at the gas station, here at the dinner table, here in line at the grocery store. Maybe joy is found in the mindfulness of being in the now-moment, even as we know the someday-moments are "coming back."
I'll end with one of my favorite Merwin poems, a short one called "Dusk in Winter":
The sun sets in the cold without friends
Without reproaches after all it has done for us
It goes down believing in nothing
When it has gone I hear the stream running
after it
It has brought its flute it is a long way
The final line always knocks me breathless. "It has brought its flute it is a long way." Indeed, it is a long way - whatever it is: the year, the anticipation of resurrection, the sleepless nights, the sickness, the wait for a vaccine, the long drive home. It is all a long way, but look: it has brought its flute. It has brought its alleluia.