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Lenten Promise
by Chris Giroux
In my more optimistic moods,
I like to think
Hester Prynne could find some small comforts
in Ash Wednesday,
a day when a choosing (if not chosen) people,
minister and ministered,
the sinned against and sinning,
elect to wear that black smudge of a cross,
a communal mark of Cain,
a signal of exile and isolation
carrying the potential of
humility,
sacrifice,
atonement,
at-one-ment.
For on this day,
as the priest raises besmirched thumb to forehead,
mourners
instinctively pause,
bow,
glance earthward,
to avoid stray specks of dust
and the parched memories
of the huzzahs and hosannas, open palms, and swaying bodies
of a passion week
some three-quarters of a year prior.
Yet,
the more receptive
glean that these potential planks in the eye,
these splinters in the soul,
these charred remainders,
exist in a world where
earthly pressures transform carbon,
perpetual drippings render stalactite palaces,
and the merest of freshwater irritants,
in a darkened sea of night swimmers and egg-white oysters,
yield Pearls.