Madeline L’Engle is a woman whose poetry is so striking. I present a few of her poems upon which to reflect this Easter. (All poems from The Ordering of Love: The New And Collected Poems of Madeline L’Engle, L’Engle, Madeleine. (Kindle Locations 1957-1964). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
ANDREW: HAVING RUN AWAY FROM JESUS IN THE GARDEN
Who is this stranger whom I hardly know,
(despite his presence within me) who cannot
be kept decently silent and unseen
(Lord, I still feel my muscles, tight from running),
with whom I must be reconciled
before I can sleep? This unwelcome
intruder who is my self must be forgiven and accepted
and somehow loved. You have forgiven me,
with your unexpected presence among us.
But even in my joy I know I betrayed you
and must forever know that this coward, too,
is as much me as the loyal disciple I thought to be.
This stranger who is most of me is still
my Lord’s failed friend, but friend nevertheless,
and in this friend I now must find, before I sleep, His image, and His love.
MARY OF MAGDALA
How do I find You, who have been blinded by the brilliance of your Father?
The darkness is heavy in tangible weight.
Am I afraid of light? Would I rather
remain in the shadows, afraid of the brightness of your face?
Why must I stay here where the black clouds gather,
trying to slow the hours in this dim place,
to halt times vast, inexorable race.
How do I find You? Through what graces?
Why am I frightened by the height of this wild, windy day
I who have always passionately loved light?
Why do I see you in the darkest places,
touch your garment only when I turn away?
Or see your radiance when ugliness and grief
seem to leave no room for you to stay?
I see you in distorted, hungry faces.
In crusts and filthy gutters is belief
in your love breaking all hate.
You have left your traces
on this demoniacs freed face and joy-streaked cheek.
I find you, Lord, when I no longer clutch.
I find you when I learn to let you go,
and then you reach out with your healing touch.
Seven demons left my tortured mind!
My Lord, so stern, so infinitely kind,
I know myself at last because you know.
MARY: AFTERWARDS
John. John, can you not take me to him,
you who were more than friend,
who are now my son?
After all we have known and borne together
can you deny to me now that you’ve surely seen him?
Can you conceal his whereabouts from his mother?
I ran to the place where the other Marys knew him;
I saw the empty tomb, the enormous stone
rolled from its mouth, the grave clothes lying.
I called, I cried, with no one there to hear me.
Joy and grief raged in my longing heart.
He was not there, nor even the flaming angel.
I was the last to be told.
Why were you all afraid to say what I most wanted to hear?
I know: the Magdalen said that she couldn’t touch him,
that she knew him only because he called her: Mary!
On the Emmaus road they didn’t know they’d been walking
beside him until he was known in the breaking of bread.
John, do you fear that perhaps I wouldn’t know him?
Perhaps it would give me pain to find my son
so changed from the son I knew, the son I circled
first with my body, last with my anguished arms.
John: I can bear to know that I may not hold him.
The angel who came to me once will help me now.
I don’t need to touch him. Just let me see him…
Don’t be impatient: “Mother, you don’t understand!”
I’ve never pretended, my dear, to understand him.
Only to love him, to be there if ever he needed
to know I was by him, waiting and loving
— Oh, John. Yes. I see. That’s how it will be, then?
You don’t know where he is?
You’re alone, and then he’s with you, but it’s different now.
He comes, and he’s gone, and you know him
only by what he says or what he does,
by his hands and feet, or in the breaking of bread.
The angel told me before his birth, and Simeon
after, and I haven’t ever asked more—or less.
If my joy in him must rest only in your witness
that he is risen, that he is risen indeed,
then he has given you to me to help me bear it.
We have shared the cup, and the dark of night is done.
I will know my son through you he has given me for my son.
