LENTEN POEM:

 THE BELOVED

Written in the Alps, 1973, Grenoble, France

by Susan Fox

He comes with leaves,

drops brown and crackling

onto pavement,

shrieks cold and sharp 

through the city; 

He rises and dies. 

Have you heard the

rustling from the mountains?

Can you see His

autumn red slashed across the hills?

Rain sweet and fresh, He tastes of morning.

“Come,” He said; I went.

I wrapped myself in the hills.

But a city wind blows there

   the whistling from the gutter;

I heard the infant cry

    louder, LOUDER than leaves.

Once we found the mountains shaken

with expectant birth of my Beloved;

but all the Kings and Diplomats

cannot stop the slow erosion of "I believe!"

nor the bold rivers of hope. Arise!  

Clouds settled on a hill called Skull.

I climbed that hill and sat in fog,

arms around the middle tree;

For three days all life had gone –

the wind blows hollow on a hill for weeds.

The blood on the grey stone church walls

beckoned me down to human places.

Now, I bleed freely, too,

and listen to leaves, the cry of children.