More Mary Karr

Descending Theology: The Garden
~Mary Karr

We know he was a man because, once doomed,
   he begged for reprieve. See him
grieving on his rock under olive trees,
   his companions asleep
on the hard ground around him
   wrapped in old hides.
Not one stayed awake as he'd asked.
   That went through him like a sword.
He wished with all his being to stay
   but gave up
bargaining at the sky. He knew
   it was all mercy anyhow,
unearned as breath. The Father couldn't intervene,
   though that gaze was never
not rapt, a mantle around him. This
   was our doing, our death.
The dark prince had poured the vial of poison
   into the betrayer's ear,
and it was done. Around the oasis where Jesus wept,
   the cracked earth radiated out for miles.
In the green center, Jesus prayed for the pardon
   of Judas, who was approaching
with soldiers, glancing up—as Christ was—into
   the punctured sky till his neck bones
ached. Here is his tear-riven face come
   to press a kiss on his brother.

"Descending Theology: The Garden" by Mary Karr from Sinners Welcome: Poems. © Harper Collins Publishers.

I discovered that Mary Karr has a series of poems entitled Descending Theology.  I selected the one above because I thought it was an interesting contrast to Oliver’s Gethsemane. The words and images in the following poem Descending Theology: the Resurrection, left a strange impression on me.  Initially I did not like the poem and was certain I did not “get it.” But I found myself returning to it, wanting to understand why it had a grip on me. I shared it with Marie and she said she liked it even better than The Grand Miracle and she suggested I post it. I found an analysis of it here, which I found very interesting and helpful.

 http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-stone-fist-of-his-heart-began-to-bang

Descending Theology: The Resurrection

~Mary Karr

From the far star points of his pinned extremities,
cold inched in — black ice and squid ink —
till the hung flesh was empty.
Lonely in that void even for pain,
he missed his splintered feet,
the human stare buried in his face.
He ached for two hands made of meat
he could reach to the end of.
In the corpse's core, the stone fist
of his heart began to bang
on the stiff chest's door, and breath spilled
back into that battered shape. Now

it's your limbs he comes to fill, as warm water
shatters at birth, rivering every way.

"Descending Theology: The Resurrection" by Mary Karr from Sinners Welcome: Poems. © Harper Collins Publishers.