Easter Haiku #3 – Tuesday, Holy Week

A moment in time.
Her perfume wastefully poured
Kneeling at his feet?

In giving our best,
Our most precious possession,
We anoint the poor.

All we have is loaned.
We merely custodians.
Use talents wisely.

Bill Adair

Poem for the Day 

The chimney sweepers
Wash their faces and forget to wash the neck;
The lighthouse keepers
Let the lamps go out and leave the ships to wreck;
The prosperous baker
Leaves the rolls in hundreds in the oven to burn;
The undertaker
Pins a small note on the coffin saying, “Wait till I return,
I’ve got a date with Love.”

And deep-sea divers
Cut their boots off and come bubbling to the top,
And engine-drivers
Bring expresses in the tunnel to a stop;
The village rector
Dashes down the side-aisle half-way through a psalm;
The sanitary inspector
Runs off with the cover of the cesspool on his arm-
To keep his date with Love.

Song
W. H. Auden

Easter Haiku #2 – Monday, Holy Week

The temple was rocked,
The moneychangers challenged,
Tables overturned.

And still it goes on.
Rich bankers, pay day lenders,
Exploiting the poor.

Be angry again.
A righteous, holy anger.
A Christ-like anger.

Bill Adair

Poem for the Day
A very powerful, personal poem, full of intimacy and a real outpouring of grief written shortly after her husband committed suicide. 

Praying, thy will be done,
How will I know, I also pray,
What is this will for me, for mine?
Shall I find windows full of sun
Or walls of darkness all the way?

And here on this turning of the stair
Between passion and doubt,
I pause and say a double prayer,
One for you, and one for you;
And so they cancel out.

And now I come to the creaking tread,
Not my way, Lord, but thine.
The steps of grief have bowed my head,
Though it is not a long climb
To the lonely bed.

Midstairs
Virginia Hamilton Adair