I. Trisagion
The Patriarch pronounces God’s wrath for imperial sin.
A child lifts her eyes to the sky. The Bosphorus boils.
The ground shakes and the great city churns.
Bricks fall as priests say the Mysteries.
Domes and monuments topple; the little girl points
Up, but no one is watching. The parents are praying.
The child sees a midday star, flashing, growing.
Wailing in the market square as the girl is lifted.
Her feet quit the ground to meet the bright seraphim.
Seven-fold wings cover fireballs of praise and thunder.
The language of angels heard overhead.
The earthquake fades as the blazing girl bleats,
“Agios o Theos, Agios ischyros,
Agios athanatos, eleison imas.” [1]
She is found on a richly painted path, dead.
II. December 4th
Drop your pen. Raise your voice in exultation,
Saint John of Damascus, sing in adoration.
Praise to the God-head three in one; lament
The Broken Image, the nerve gas plume,
The war-machines, the ghosts of doom.
Syria is scorched. The AK-47
Denies your precious dogmas of heaven;
Satan’s answer to the Incarnation.
The ancient city crumbles, the rockets are flying
Tanks rumble in the dust; the Christians crushed,
The Icons, the images of God
Are children bruised and gasping in the gutter.
The treachery of kings cuts the arm of the just.
The blood will soak the iron and the rust.
The cobblestones are red but praise Him we must
Pray for the dead and the dying.
Holy Mother of God, Our Lady of the Sign,
Convey our prayer through thorn and tine
Pray for us to Christ, your Son, our Lord
For peace, for healing, for loving accord.
III. December 5th
Drop your book. Raise a song of exultation,
Saint Clement of Alexandria, add your adoration.
Pray, O Clement, your city is burning; lament
The graffiti on the cement. Paint cries for peace,
But police tanks roll over bodies in the streets.
We have failed to learn your lessons. Our violence
Prevents us from seeing the Image of a God
Big enough to save us all with our imagination.
O Divine Logos, Revelation and Reason,
Illumine the darkness. Remember the season.
Give us the freedom to imagine, revision.
Where is the grace to heal our division?
———
[1] “Holy God, holy and mighty, holy Immortal One, have mercy on us.”
James Stambaugh 