Poetry

Lectionary Poetry – Ninth Sunday After Pentecost (Year C)

Lectionary Poetry
Each week we carefully curate a collection of  poems that resonate with the lectionary readings for that week (Narrative Lectionary and Revised Common Lectionary).
 
 

*** Revised Common Lectionary ***

Lectionary Reading:
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

 
 

CLASSIC POEM:

We Wear the Mask
Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

*** This poem is in the public domain,
and may be read in a live-streamed worship service.
 
 

CONTEMPORARY POEM:

Book of Isaiah, Part I
Anne Carson


SNIPPET:

Isaiah awoke angry.
Lapping at Isaiah’s ears black birdsong no it was anger.
God had filled Isaiah’s ears with stingers.
Once God and Isaiah were friends.

[ READ THE FULL POEM ]

 
 

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