4 Holy Week Poems

Hello small band of new subscribers and faithful crew of longterm readers,

I’m grateful you’re reading this and that you care to let a little poetry into your life through these newsletters of mine. Some of you I met at Branches, at Square Halo Books, at The Breath & The Clay, at Five Ponds, or the Made to Flourish Gathering. You probably heard me read a poem about my cat, or about the time I finally wrote a poem about boats and storms and Jesus. Thanks for finding me on Substack. I hope this newsletter adds something meaningful to your inbox, not just more noise.

We’re in the steep incline of the final ascent of Lent, here in these Holy days. My work in my local church is all-encompassing now, filling my dreams at night and nearly every waking moment during the day, leading up to the Triduum. Not the kind of “work-life balance” one would want to maintain, but it’s short-lived every year, and it’s in service of the one new thing under the sun: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So I figure it’s worth it. In my tradition and in my parish, the Vigil is the height of it all. And friends, it’s almost here! Check out the gorgeous postcard-sized flyer we made this year, out of a linocut by one of our artists and the flyer designed by another artist in our midst:

What do you see in the linocut ~ tomb? water? wood? labyrinth? mountain?cabbage?

If you’re near Boston and want to be a part of a late-night Easter celebration steeped in the Biblical story of redemption, with fresh creative responses to the Scriptures in poetry, dance, choral pieces, carpentry, sculpture, music, paintings, baking, and performance art — then you are cordially invited.

In my first book of poetry, Under the Terebinth, I have a series of poems tied to the liturgical calendar, and today I offer you the 4 Holy Week poems, with a video of me reading them below.

Admittedly, these poems are very personal, and I wrote them without any intention of ever sharing them with the world (the one exception being “Holy Saturday” which was part of a larger endeavor called The Butterfly Project I knew would be read aloud in front of a small audience). I didn’t write them attempting to be some kind of creative summation of the Passion of Our Lord, but when I was gathering a manuscript, back in 2024, to send off to publishers for the first time, I realized I had the makings of a “Liturgy” section in the book. Sure enough that’s how it developed. Two weeks ago I shared one of my Lenten poems from that section, but here we are in Holy Week, so these seemed like the ones to share today. I promise I will get back to my Overness series, in two weeks’ time.

Palm Sunday
Over lunch, a conflagration
of car horns, a woman
with her white megaphone,
and a high school marching band —
humans — loud, impassioned, fill
the Common in downtown Boston:
Simba’s I Just Can’t Wait to Be King
blends with chants on Park Street, a wildfire
of noise turns the corner — “genocide”
the only word I catch.
Is it the sun — a surprise
mid-March — that lit these souls, gathered
at the fountain, on the grass
and every sidewalk? Light like this
on the outer edges
of winter, sparks. So I join
the procession, restless
to wander, to dance, to shout
at pedestrians who disobey
the signs, walking
with a sense
of their own courage
to an unknown destination.

Good Friday
The wind keeps me
from my walk today.
To wrap up
in my scarf, without feeling
a noose around my neck —
to tuck in my shirt securely —
to pull my socks up over the hem
of my pants
so I won’t be forced
to do it twice — it’s all too much.
I want to move
my body
out into the world save
the question
of things unraveling.
                                The wind
wraps around our flat
like a whip —
like a dragon’s tail.
Pausing in the stairwell,
I check the elm
— try to measure
its bend and weight against
my son’s corner bedroom.
                                The wind
— as if to peel
back the crust of the earth
sends dust, candy wrappers, a shoe
whirling — makes us huddle
in our homes, not taking walks
— Dammit
a sudden wallop
then a slow persisting drone — it’s not
a dance I know.
I pause my hurried steps
again on the landing,
a load of dirty clothes
resting at my hip. The next
gust — calculating, I can only watch
the pale porch curtains
wrangle, spill,
twist, and fly.

Holy Saturday
I apologize
for the metaphor, dear
Caterpillar. I’ve read you
like a Bible verse that caught
my eye, scrawled on a city bench
far from home. The wily human
heart longs for something purer
than luck or chance—
                uncontaminated
hope. I’ve watched you
grovel on what they call
(I kid you not) false legs
and how you eat and eat
beyond appetite — it’s all
too familiar, Caterpillar.
How you one day
turn in, get awfully quiet
wound up and bound
to a secrecy, I see you there —
no fresh air, no sunlight.
You must question
the royal title
in the darkness, Monarch.
So yes, you bring to mind
the old Pharaohs mummified, and Jesus
wrapped up in strips of linen
altogether still, and my own baby
swaddled, in a shoe box, buried
under the purple butterfly
bush in bloom.

Easter Morning

it all started with

Adam’s fried egg slipping

off his plate and into the open

silverware drawer — we were

already late — steaming, orangey

goo pooled, covered every clean,

sharp knife, so I yelled

hallelujah — breath released, all clenched

teeth slackened, raised eyebrows fell

back into position then the laughter

came, shook the kitchen, racked our bodies

and settled down into hugs all

around it’s ok it’s all

going to be ok

Further up & further in,

Anna