Sand Opera Lenten Journey Day 46: “Let There Be Light”: Compline, + Priscilla Wathington and Harvey Hix

Sand Opera Lenten Journey Day 46: “Let There Be Light”: Compline, + Priscilla Wathington and Harvey Hix

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,
the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss,
while a mighty wind swept over the waters.

Then God said,
“Let there be light,” and there was light.
God saw how good the light was.
God then separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”
Thus evening came, and morning followed—the first day.

On Holy Saturday, we live between Crucifixion and Resurrection, past and future, full of uncertainty and hope. George Steiner once called our modern existence as one of Holy Saturday:  “We know of that Good Friday which Christianity holds to have been that of the Cross.  But the non-Christian, the atheist, knows of it as well – the pain, the failure of love, the solitude which are our history and our private fate.  We know also about Sunday. To the Christian  that day signifies an intimation of resurrection of a justice and a love that has conquered death.   If we are non-Christians, we know of that Sunday in analogous terms – the day of liberation from inhumanity and servitude…. Ours is the long day’s journey of the Saturday.  Between suffering, aloneness, unutterable waste on the one hand, and the dream of liberation, of rebirth on the other.”

I remember when Amy was about to give birth for the first time, we read somewhere that “you can’t give birth with your head.” I’ve been thinking about my resistances to religion, to the life of faith, trying to remind myself that I can’t give birth with my head. How Guy Picciotto of Rites of Spring once sang: “I said I bled/I tried to have the heart/through the head.” And how Kahlil Gibran once wrote: “Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.”

I’m thinking of light, feeling the light. Just as our days tilt toward the sun, each day growing in strength, the pulsing of life all around us strengthens—the suddenness of greens and birdsong, life, life, life. Despite all the literal and figurative nights we endure, the violence and war and torture and despair and heart-brokenness, there is this pulsing, this turning toward the light, seed-hopeful. We dream of being broken open into what we are meant to become.

I’m thinking of what my Iraqi and Afghani friends have endured at the hands of our empire. Of Shakir, Nawal, Salih, Dunya, Huda, Sinan, Wafaa, Zohra. I’m thinking of those who remain in Guantanamo. Of Mohamedou Ould Slahi. I’m thinking of all the victims of war and hatred, of black sites and drone strikes, of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, of prison cells and prison camps, and, closer to home, of racial oppression and sexual violence, of all our hurting hurting others. And the torment we visit upon ourselves. I’m thinking of all of us who find no reason to get up in the morning and nonetheless still get up in the morning, who wake with the light because there is something in us that lives in the light. There is something sleeping in us that rises with the day.

Thanks to Priscilla Wathington and Harvey Hix for their dialogues with “Compline.”

“And We Are Witnesses Of It” by Priscilla Wathington

            -a meditation on “Compline,” from Sand Opera

That     the tomb be opened, glass removed from the observatory’s blood-shot eye, that

we        who stood muzzled while a saw hunted its own dust would

await    a breathing into the dust’s nostrils, a bay of bones conferred

a          new leather to contain the

blessed man, pulp of

hope    remade by its own bloom.

My       fleeced lips unfit to drink this suffering garden of

God     to look into the dusk of olives for the

open    unwrapped body of God

the       prison guards rolled back like a stone 

spine    leavened. Remake the cotton

binding            into garments, forgive us

our       lumbering

sight.               

On Easter in Palestine, I used to hear my friends and family members exchange this call-and-response greeting in Arabic: “Christ has risen / Truly risen / And we are witnesses of it.” Philip Metres’s poem, “Compline” is the final thought in a sober volume about the multitude of ways we have failed to approach each other as equal creations. It traces our failure of vision and how wed we are to a “spine” way of thinking. The poem acknowledges that this dark day has already been lived by many with long echoes that will spread beyond them and into the night. Despite this, “Compline” blesses its readers with a reminder and invocation: “That we await a blessed hope.” 

--Priscilla Wathington is a consulting editor to the children’s human rights group, Defense for Children International - Palestine. Her poems have recently appeared in Spark and Echo Arts, Sukoon, Mizna and The Normal School. 

“Echoes” by H.L. Hix

My God, my God, open the spine binding our sight.

My God, my God, open the spine binding my sight.

Their God, their God, open the spine binding my sight.

Their God, their God, break the spine binding my sight.

Their God, their God, break the bonds binding my sight.

Their God, their God, break the bonds binding my hearing.

Their God, their God, break the bonds chafing my hearing.

Our God, our God, break the bonds chafing my hearing.

Our God, our God, break my bonds, repair my hearing.

Our God, our God, break my bonds, restore my sight.

Any God, any God, break my bonds, restore my sight.

All Gods, all Gods, break their bonds, restore my sight.

--H.L. Hix is a poet and the author of numerous books, most recently American Anger (2016).