The Poiema Poetry Series
Poems are windows into worlds; windows into beauty, goodness, and truth; windows into understandings that won’t twist themselves into tidy dogmatic statements; windows into experiences. We can do more than merely peer into such windows; with a little effort we can fling open the casements, and leap over the sills into the heart of these worlds. We are also led into familiar places of hurt, confusion, and disappointment, but we arrive in the poet’s company. Poetry is a partnership between poet and reader, seeking together to gain something of value—to get at something important.
Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are God’s workmanship . . .” poiema in Greek—the thing that has been made, the masterpiece, the poem. The Poiema Poetry Series presents the work of gifted poets who take Christian faith seriously, and demonstrate in whose image we have been made through their creativity and craftsmanship.
These poets are recent participants in the ancient tradition of David, Asaph, Isaiah, and John the Revelator. The thread can be followed through the centuries—through the diverse poetic visions of Dante, Bernard of Clairvaux, Donne, Herbert, Milton, Hopkins, Eliot, R. S. Thomas, and Denise Levertov—down to the poet whose work is in your hand. With the selection of this volume you are entering this enduring tradition, and as a reader contributing to it.
—D.S. Martin
Series Editor
collections in this series include:
Six Sundays toward a Seventh by Sydney Lea
Epitaphs for the Journey by Paul Mariani
Within This Tree of Bones by Robert Siegel
Particular Scandals by Julie L. Moore
Gold by Barbara Crooker
A Word In My Mouth by Robert Cording
Say This Prayer into the Past by Paul Willis
Scape by Luci Shaw
Conspiracy of Light by D. S. Martin
Remembering Jesus
Sonnets and Songs
John Leax
REMEMBERING JESUS
Sonnets and Songs
The Poiema Poetry Series
Copyright © 2014 John Leax. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Cascade Books
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
ISBN 13: 978-1-62564-560-9
EISBN 13: 978-1-63087-167-3
Cataloging-in-Publication data:
Leax, John
Remembering Jesus : poem / John Leax.
The Poiema Poetry Series 11
viii + 52 p. ; 23 cm.
ISBN 13 : 978-1-62564-560-9
1. American Poetry—21st century. I. Title. II. Series.
PS3562.E262 2014
Manufactured in the USA.
To
My friends
In the Chrysostom Society
Past and present
The
Peace of Christ
Prayer
Matthew 26:25, 27:5
I dream of grace. The tongue that might have praised,
That might have sung forgiveness equal to
The sum of all the mercy God shot through
Creation when his stone-sealed Son blazed
Awake, the light to light betrayal’s dark
Design, is swollen black in the hole that was
A mouth; my brother, Judas, hanged the ark
Of his redemption. Still I dream of grace.
I dream I take him from his tree, and lift
Him up to life. Should one betrayal cost
A soul—eternity demand such thrift
Of grace—the lost remain forever lost?
How then my three denials be forgiven?
Christ, Savior, win your chosen back for Eden.
Zacharias
Luke 1:5–41
Elizabeth became my voice when all
My praise was silence, doubtful words by angel
Presence stopped in mercy, my faith too small
For careless acquiescence to the marvel
He announced. In silence I became a sign
Of grace Elizabeth conceived. Her touch
Brought me alive to wordless bliss, divine
Intention whole in broken love such
As we know in cruel diminished age.
Joy swollen, she hid herself. God’s silence
Binding me, I lived, a walking suffrage,
Before the coming incandescence.
When Mary came, our Joy leapt up included
To greet the one in virgin womb secluded.
Old Shepherd
Luke 2:13–14
As winter cold leans hard upon my back,
I long for once-upon-a-time when I
Was small enough my elders watched the black
Night through and let me sleep. Only the cry
Of the ewe in lambing time caused them to make
Me rise; my hands were small to ease a birth.
I minded them and rose. This night I shake
Beside the fire. Wind blowing from the north,
Disturbs the boy I used to be. No stars
Blanket his sleep. Once to voices brilliant
In light I woke. We found a child not far
From where we kept our sheep. Rough celebrants,
We woke his mother from her careful rest.
Like a lamb newborn he nestled at her breast.
In Rama There Was a Voice
Matthew 2:16–18
“The king requires your son,” I said. No more
Herself than a child, the infant’s mother turned
Her head. Her hand closed white against the door.
She