A little late, but I still wanted to post this. In my Ash Wednesday sermon , I described the mash up of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s as the Barbenheimer of days, an initially odd pairing that are somehow both about death. Here is a little poem I wrote, reflecting on some verses from Song of Songs, but refracted through the themes of Ash Wednesday.
Stronger than Death
The priest’s finger spells
an ashy cross upon my head.
That single letter speaks
and weaves a tale of dread,
tracing my beginning,
portending my dusty end.
But death is not its only word.
That cross speaks too of cure,
of death undone by death,
of our physician and lover pure,
who heals us by becoming
the disease we all endure.
Christ’s cross is Christ’s kiss
upon my brow that seals
a love stronger than death.