A poem for the latter part of Lent

Recently published in Earth & Altar. Go give them some traffic—there’s a lot of great stuff to read in addition to the poetry.

When I was in grad school, I worked as a verger at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. The cathedral proper was my work space (along with the sacristy and vestry and related spaces). Among the little tasks I did throughout the day was to clean out and replace votive candles. Most were the type we normally think of in the West—the ones you can buy in the store that are literally sold as “votive candles.” But we also had a few bowls of sand with thin candles called “Russian tapers” that you could light and set into the sand. As I cleaned out old candles and re-stocked the supplies, I woud sometimes pray over whatever prayers (and pray-ers) those candles had represented. I started to think of them as the “detritus of prayers” (pictured above).

That’s largely where this poem comes from, although other imagery is also from that particular part-time job.

Elaine Elizabeth Belz
BORROWING LIGHT

Tapers flicker, melt down into sand:
the detritus of prayers.

Saints in the windows
gift a murky, fragmented light
to this flat-lit nave, their forms

dimming into color
the incandescence of the sun.
The days are lengthening

     because it’s Lent—and
because the clocks have been rigged.
Soon, the sun will hold out longer,

challenge our patience
as we wait for the darkness we need
to practice our vigil for daybreak.

     But isn’t it futile to schedule Easter?
Isn’t its annual calendar dance a sign

that Resurrection will always and only
burst forth in its own good time?

Meanwhile, there are days
and days to rehearse that hope.
These tapers slowly burn,

till pools of hot wax mixed with sand
cool and harden: the detritus of prayers
that have been heard,

and having been heard,
have let go of light.