Remembering Jesus. John Leax

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Remembering Jesus - John Leax Poiema Poetry Series

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      The Poiema Poetry Series

      Poems are windows into worlds; windows into beauty, goodness, and truth; windows into understandings that won’t twist themselves into tidy dogmatic statements; windows into experiences. We can do more than merely peer into such windows; with a little effort we can fling open the casements, and leap over the sills into the heart of these worlds. We are also led into familiar places of hurt, confusion, and disappointment, but we arrive in the poet’s company. Poetry is a partnership between poet and reader, seeking together to gain something of value—to get at something important.

      Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are God’s workmanship . . .” poiema in Greek—the thing that has been made, the masterpiece, the poem. The Poiema Poetry Series presents the work of gifted poets who take Christian faith seriously, and demonstrate in whose image we have been made through their creativity and craftsmanship.

      These poets are recent participants in the ancient tradition of David, Asaph, Isaiah, and John the Revelator. The thread can be followed through the centuries—through the diverse poetic visions of Dante, Bernard of Clairvaux, Donne, Herbert, Milton, Hopkins, Eliot, R. S. Thomas, and Denise Levertov—down to the poet whose work is in your hand. With the selection of this volume you are entering this enduring tradition, and as a reader contributing to it.

       —D.S. Martin

      Series Editor

      collections in this series include:

      Six Sundays toward a Seventh by Sydney Lea

      Epitaphs for the Journey by Paul Mariani

      Within This Tree of Bones by Robert Siegel

      Particular Scandals by Julie L. Moore

      Gold by Barbara Crooker

      A Word In My Mouth by Robert Cording

      Say This Prayer into the Past by Paul Willis

      Scape by Luci Shaw

      Conspiracy of Light by D. S. Martin

      Remembering Jesus

      Sonnets and Songs

      John Leax

      REMEMBERING JESUS

      Sonnets and Songs

      The Poiema Poetry Series

      Copyright © 2014 John Leax. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Cascade Books

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      ISBN 13: 978-1-62564-560-9

      EISBN 13: 978-1-63087-167-3

      Cataloging-in-Publication data:

      Leax, John

      Remembering Jesus : poem / John Leax.

      The Poiema Poetry Series 11

      viii + 52 p. ; 23 cm.

      ISBN 13 : 978-1-62564-560-9

      1. American Poetry—21st century. I. Title. II. Series.

      PS3562.E262 2014

      Manufactured in the USA.

      To

      My friends

      In the Chrysostom Society

      Past and present

      The

      Peace of Christ

      Prayer

      Matthew 26:25, 27:5

      I dream of grace. The tongue that might have praised,

      That might have sung forgiveness equal to

      The sum of all the mercy God shot through

      Creation when his stone-sealed Son blazed

      Awake, the light to light betrayal’s dark

      Design, is swollen black in the hole that was

      A mouth; my brother, Judas, hanged the ark

      Of his redemption. Still I dream of grace.

      I dream I take him from his tree, and lift

      Him up to life. Should one betrayal cost

      A soul—eternity demand such thrift

      Of grace—the lost remain forever lost?

      How then my three denials be forgiven?

      Christ, Savior, win your chosen back for Eden.

      Zacharias

      Luke 1:5–41

      Elizabeth became my voice when all

      My praise was silence, doubtful words by angel

      Presence stopped in mercy, my faith too small

      For careless acquiescence to the marvel

      He announced. In silence I became a sign

      Of grace Elizabeth conceived. Her touch

      Brought me alive to wordless bliss, divine

      Intention whole in broken love such

      As we know in cruel diminished age.

      Joy swollen, she hid herself. God’s silence

      Binding me, I lived, a walking suffrage,

      Before the coming incandescence.

      When Mary came, our Joy leapt up included

      To greet the one in virgin womb secluded.

      Old

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