Two Poems of Ashes

A ONE Church Devotional Moment for Ash Wednesday

A blessed Ash Wednesday to you, friends. Last Friday, T.S. Eliot’s classic poem, “Ash Wednesday”, challenged our comprehension nearly to the point of breaking. On this sacred day, gateway to Lent, the searching rhythm of poetry serves us well. Bu this time I offer more accessible verse. The Methodist pastor and author, Jan Richardson, gives us “Blessing the Dust”, which paints vividly our frailty, then asks, “Did you not know what the Holy One can do with dust?” Her fine poem is an apt guide through this sacred day. And second, Lisa M. Caldwell-Riess’s “Poem for Ash Wednesday” contemplates how Ash Wednesday readies us for the Easter moment that seems so far in the distant future. May these words offer first steps on the long walk toward Holy Week.

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“Blessing the Dust”
by Jan Richardson

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

A Poem for Ash Wednesday
by Lisa M. Caldwell-Reiss

Will stopping this Wednesday to receive
the sign of the cross in dirty ash
Upon tired foreheads really make a difference
Mark us for a moment, a season, a lifetime?

Will this emblem on our own skin
Soak in where words have not
and choices have not?

I wonder at its hope and purpose.

People of candle flame and tongues of fire,
Walkers on water who have dipped
beneath the cleansing surface,
Taking a night to dabble in oily ash and stain.

Would that Sunday, yet two months away,
dawn at all, if not as bright,
with trumpet call to new life if we could not
stand in this other truth, as true
as resurrection but more gritty?

Does its honest presence make the revelation
The breath, the rising sun possible
We stand with grimy hands, flinching,
Drawing back from the itchy sensation
Of ash and oil and human nature.

Holding ourselves still
And breathing deeply until, we can be,
wholly in this grubby skin,
Waiting, with creation for the water and the flame.

Tossing scraps of paper sin into a smoky burner
Watching as they are consumed,
disintegrate and rise,
Prayers for healing, longing, hope, to God.

We laugh, upside down and unrelenting,
A laugh like Easter morning.

Prayer — Somehow, O God, you know us as both frail and holy — and you love us wholly. As we reflect this day on your grace, draw us forward into your future, in Jesus. Amen.