Love Poem: Lent

Lent

Lent 

What does it mean?
To take the desert stance
Then walk this path
Of greatest resistance 

To tangle your heart
With the rocks and the snakes
To lie your head down
Where the deceiver wakes 

What is the point?
Of self-denial
To clear out the bitterness
Of the dark tempter's vial

To empty our hearts 
When life's hard enough
And leave behind all of that
Comfortable stuff 

Why would it reset?
My fluttering heart
If I take my self out
Setting ego apart.. 

Perhaps it's a call
To empty the space
So the cluttering stuff
Is put back in it's place 

If I speak to the emptiness 
And invite in the weakness 
Facing up to desires
Crowding out Holy meekness 

So Lent is the time.
A Divine invitation 
To reconnect wholly
With High inspiration 

The physical joys
And their transient pleasure
Replaced, not in part
But in full Holy measure 

This is heavenly mystery;
A desire to bless
In our weakest position 
Of the dry wilderness 

So, embrace the unfriendly 
Welcome the stranger
Feed up the hungry
As if gifts to the manger 

For all we can do
When push comes to shove
In the emptying out
Is refilling with love.


Jinjagoliath
Ash Wednesday
16th February 2021