This semester, I’ve been teaching my beloved Dante again as I prepare with my students to go on our own pilgrimage to Italy. Monday night we began the final canticle, Paradiso–appropriate since it, too, is set directly after Easter.
In Dante’s slightly trippy jetting through the heavens (he called it “transhumanizing”), he spends his time very differently than one might expect. Having come to an understanding of the consequences of sin in Inferno and the necessities of sanctification in Purgatorio, Dante finds that in Paradiso he has the perhaps surprising opportunity to explore theological questions, usually in conversation with the saints he meets. Questions about justice and predestination, about unity in the church, about institutional corruption, about faith and hope and love. Dante seems to be arguing that a mature faith, moving ever closer to God, is one comfortable with wondering what real difference the Resurrection actually makes.
That’s the essential question, isn’t it? And it’s why I love this short poem by Lucille Clifton. In these few lines, she’s asking Dante’s same question, but doing so through her senses, through her observations of the world around her.
Her delightful litany invites us to do the same: what might you notice in your own spring song?
How is your future more “possible” this week after the Resurrection?
spring song
by Lucille Clifton
the green of Jesus
is breaking the ground
and the sweet
smell of delicious Jesus
is opening the house and
the dance of Jesus music
has hold of the air and
the world is turning
in the body of Jesus and
the future is possible
Copyright Credit: Lucille Clifton, “spring song” from The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton. Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton.
Photo by Anastasiya Boyar on Unsplash
5 Responses
A delightfully Jesus-y poem. I wonder how Easter feels in the southern hemisphere when it signals the approach of winter (which is admittedly not that cold for most of the southern hemisphere located near the equator).
Thank you for giving us this lovely poem, bringing to mind “Canticle of the Turning”, which brings the hope of the resurrection to all of the power, hatred, and injustice of this age, reminding us that the world, indeed, is about to turn because our Lord lives.
” the world, indeed, is about to turn because our Lord lives.”
Yes, but faith is subject to strain when the centuries of much darkness and sometimes only glimmers of light roll by with no “turning” in sight. And more groaning of “oh Lord, come quickly!”
You are absolutely right with the strain of darkness that seeks to overwhelm the light and often my prayer becomes “how long, O Lord?”. We may close our years on this earth in this darkness, but my trust abides in God to, indeed, turn the slow arc of justice for my children, grands, and theirs as they continue on until the Lord comes again.
Jennifer,
I’d never read this poem, but I love it. Thank you!