“We gather the dry pieces,” a poem for Ash Wednesday

We gather the dry pieces

For Ash Wednesday

Let us keep in mind

the ashes of this year’s ritual

were made from a flash of praise,

with green fronds lifted high

in that brief moment of brightness

before the shouts of joy turned

and rage took hold and possessed

the crowd who then tossed their palms,

crushed and bruised onto the dusty ground.

In this season of light and shadow,

we gather the dry pieces, now crisp with time,

and burn them to an ash,

infused with the memory of all we are capable of,

the distance between our joy and our rage

stretching only from our desire to our fear.

Now on this day we come forward

to kneel for a moment and remember

the fullness of our own humanity.

It is the memory of our own selves

that we mark on our faces,

a truth we can only see

when we dare to look in a mirror.

And when we draw close,

there, in the smudge of a cross,

in dust pressed on our skin 

by the fingers of another searching human,

we see a glimmer of light

as hope takes root once again.

Stuart