Birdsong

The bird sang,
singing to the beauty of day and light,
from the afternoon through the night,
and this sweet music was the very last,
the most utterly sweetest collection of sounds of all,
and why Jesus wept.

Hearing the sweet song,
he remembered the time before time,
he remembered the Artist forming time
and all being, and being formed within and from it all
—and though he knew that the bird could not know this,
he and the bird and the song would meet in Paradise.

And thus it was that,
on the third day,
the sun rose,
and the bird sang for joy,
and the bird’s song was heard
both in this world and all the others.

© 2013 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Dawn

          a song for Easter

          The Holy Spirit is the rising sap, 

          And Christ will be the green leaves that will come
          At Easter from the sealed and guarded tomb.

                       Patrick Kavanagh
                       From the Great Hunger: III, lines 25-27

Steal in,
Steal in softly,
Steal in silently, sweet Other;
Flow thy sweet living steams in,
Flow in vision, flow in being
On the exuberant morning tide!

Illumine from dark to dim to light,
To consciousness and the recognition of it;
In you flowing tide, fill me from outside in,
Until you fill my veins and my visioning with beauty,
Gently birthing me out of your essence.

Steal in,
Steal in softly, Beloved,
Steal in slowly, dear Other;
Flow like the flames of dawn into my senses,
Sing like the lark through my veins,
Extrude me from your consciousness,
Unfold me from the budding of your source
Until I am everything,
And the fleeting thought on the wind,
As the light grows from rose to flame.

Steal in softly, and
Weave our endless song--
Theme and Variations
On our eternally new moment of discovery.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem was written in 2002.

This text has been set to music by composer James Hurd.

Wake Up Call

Weeping

and the sound of stone scraping on stone
announced a blinding light.

“Come out,”
called a voice,
distant, yet familiar;
far away, yet close by.

A call from one world
to another,
as yet unrecognized
by an object.

“Friend, come out,”
the voice softer now,
closer, kindly.

Could it be for me?

Rising with effort,
encumbered
and stiff,
the faintest trace,
the faintest memory of I
shuffles toward
a bright world.

Sleep,
it has seven beneficial qualities:
    sleep heals,
    sleep relaxes,
    sleep stores focus,
    sleep sharpens memory,
    sleep checks appetite,
    sleep supports a positive outlook,
    sleep calls forth a morning filled with light.

But the wake up call
goes one better than sleep:
love of the Friend is greater than death.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Return Trip

the forty days and nights
passed like years, she writes:

you choose
    your mood
         make your way
and come again
to the city gate
    at an hour late
for finding lodgings
and food.

it is very like
one never left,
but for the sudden death

emergence was
unexpected,
yet edifying:

one sometimes
    has to make sacrifice
in order to know
    it is not needed;

a misapprehension
on the part of one
who thought to measure
commitment in cubits and
freedom in leagues

the gift of
    this return trip:

learning that
the meaning
and the measure
of life fully lived
is the love
that is greater
than death

learning to give it all up

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen