In the past few days I have talked to several people about my mother and her passing when I was 16. Here is an older piece from AFE which is in sonnet form and has somewhat archaic, Scriptural sounding language. Still, the theology it expresses is sound, even it it is not an incredibly personal meditation. Perhaps more of those sort in upcoming posts.

Roses on Gravestones

Warm, dying petals on silent, cold stone;
Thorny stems cut quick from life-giving earth;
And more corpses lie where one was alone,
To rot and elicit the Serpent’s mirth.
“What fools mortals are that bring to remind,
Flowers to gravestones, to celebrate life.
When eyes that they love are hollow and blind,
And stench of dead roses multiplies strife.”
His laughter mocks hard a world doomed to die,
But truly is empty; Death knows full well
That dead, rotting roses best signify
The Bruised Seed rooted to raze gates of Hell.
Sharon’s sweet Rose was buried in death,
So dead rotting souls could breathe in new breath.

Standing by my mother’s graveside with soon to be wilting flowers, the idea for this poem came to me. It seems sad irony that the very tokens that we take to celebrate the life of our loved ones are similarly cut off from life, soon to be rotting and dying. Think of the anguish that Mary must have experienced at the foot of the cross watching the life of her child of the promise being cut down at such an early age; the hopes that she and the disciples shared, seemingly coming to a bitter end. The story does not end there of course, or we as Christian, Paul notes, would be the most hopeless of all people. Easter morning follows Good Friday and death and Hell are vanquished. Our wilting flowers then do speak of the sorrow and pain of loss, but also of a future Easter morning when all of the dead in Christ will bloom.

Sweet Mom