Elegy For Ash Wednesday
  

Strew your ashes on the ground,
You of kindred substance
Stride boldly over the same.
Traverse with haughty-humility; captive dragging the
Name Across the antecedent terrestrial mound.
Who that meanders and passes -
Passing ashen through vistas of ashes -
Has not in the soot thus been cleansed
Whilst seeking, pondering
Equity's scarcest amends?
Trudge on you battalion meek;
Scorn not blindly the ignoble ashes
Met upon the quest for justice seek.
And in the treasured confounded uncertainty
Of faith for truth do yearn -
For tho' anguish, 'tis joy profound,
Aye, the only path that does upward turn.
Fracture the bread, consume the sanguine wine;
Make your libations and hurl your petitions
Into the depth of the sacred night;
For blessed be the One who gave the Lamb,
Who once gladdened hearts with the fruit of the vine -
Whom His own doth know to troth to plight.

8. March, 2000

AML