Thanks, Anna! Question for you if you have the bandwidth: does this poem feel disjointed anywhere? One reader (off-Substack) mentioned that it felt like two different poems to her and she couldn't find the link.
I don't know about two different poems-- not sure where that break would be. But, it is hard to join the three stanzas, I see that. Maybe it's "the room" that seems to disconnect it from the other two stanzas, because they seem so absolutely placed out of doors. The title throws me off a bit, too. Is this a modern-day person being baptized on a Sunday, remembering/reaffirming all that Christ has done for them to be baptized into him? Or is it Jesus' baptism? Or, as one commenter already said, a depiction of the crucifixion? There's a lot going on. And our hearts are take from perhaps a modern-day baptism, to Golgotha, to Mt. Sinai...it's hard to know where to land in time or place. Which was maybe one of your intentions?
Thanks for taking the time to analyze the poem, Anna. Yes, we're looking at a modern day person being baptized on Sunday, as well as conflating the event with the casting down of the 10 commandments, but they're not broken because the law was broken. They're broken because the law was kept. We're also looking at two etchings of the law onto someone's flesh. Christ, with the sacrifice of his own body, etched the law onto the hearts of all who believe – including the man who was being baptized. The water running down his head indicates the man being sprinkled at the same time as calling to mind the sweat that Christ shed as he was preparing for the cross. Time is indeed a relative, all-at-once thing here and I did mean to leave this open to multiple interpretations.
I have read numerous descriptions of the horror of crucifixion. I have read a smaller number that reaveal the great cosmic battle at play, but seldom if ever have I heard the law brought in..(and I am reminded of the tablets being against us, the template for our righteous condemnation. You poem pivots from our death, to our very source of life. And while I have heard of a new law being carved in our hearts, I had never thought of it carved in him. Physically.
Our class enjoyed your poem today! (After the Fall) Many thanks!
Glad to hear it! Thanks for letting me know!
Lovely, especially:
"Water trickled
down his scalp—
approving thunder flung
stone tablets
to the ground"
Thank you, Margaret Ann!
Oof. So good.
Thanks, Jordan!
decanted / into open hearts !!!!! Love this. Thank you, Mark!
Thanks, Anna! Question for you if you have the bandwidth: does this poem feel disjointed anywhere? One reader (off-Substack) mentioned that it felt like two different poems to her and she couldn't find the link.
I don't know about two different poems-- not sure where that break would be. But, it is hard to join the three stanzas, I see that. Maybe it's "the room" that seems to disconnect it from the other two stanzas, because they seem so absolutely placed out of doors. The title throws me off a bit, too. Is this a modern-day person being baptized on a Sunday, remembering/reaffirming all that Christ has done for them to be baptized into him? Or is it Jesus' baptism? Or, as one commenter already said, a depiction of the crucifixion? There's a lot going on. And our hearts are take from perhaps a modern-day baptism, to Golgotha, to Mt. Sinai...it's hard to know where to land in time or place. Which was maybe one of your intentions?
Thanks for taking the time to analyze the poem, Anna. Yes, we're looking at a modern day person being baptized on Sunday, as well as conflating the event with the casting down of the 10 commandments, but they're not broken because the law was broken. They're broken because the law was kept. We're also looking at two etchings of the law onto someone's flesh. Christ, with the sacrifice of his own body, etched the law onto the hearts of all who believe – including the man who was being baptized. The water running down his head indicates the man being sprinkled at the same time as calling to mind the sweat that Christ shed as he was preparing for the cross. Time is indeed a relative, all-at-once thing here and I did mean to leave this open to multiple interpretations.
This hit me with such force I almost dropped my phone.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Kirk! I appreciate your encouragement. May I ask what it was about this that landed so firmly?
I have read numerous descriptions of the horror of crucifixion. I have read a smaller number that reaveal the great cosmic battle at play, but seldom if ever have I heard the law brought in..(and I am reminded of the tablets being against us, the template for our righteous condemnation. You poem pivots from our death, to our very source of life. And while I have heard of a new law being carved in our hearts, I had never thought of it carved in him. Physically.
Thanks for telling me. Writing it was a "where are you taking me?" process.
I appreciate that, I have pomes just climbing to get our my skull, that then take over and write temselves.