All You Can Do

a poem for Palm Sunday (this year, April 13th)

I wrote this poem in the week after Palm Sunday in 2019, as I was about to travel to do something that I was not sure I would be able to do, something that brought up a lot of pain from the past. I was thinking about all of the ways that we are required to move through impossible things in our lives, how we can only hope to surrender to the path, and find forgiveness somewhere along the way. I was also thinking about how Jesus knew what was coming - or it seems he does - but must go through the path anyway, and at first, it seems like it is celebratory, as if they love him - but he knows that it will turn. That there will be betrayal - but the only way back to life is to keep moving forward. I think of Palm Sunday often as a lesson in radical acceptance, forgiveness, and resilience.

All you can do
is walk into Jerusalem
with the Hosannas ringing
in your ears,
and the palms coming at you
in every direction
when you’re already
remembering the bitter
of what comes next -
even then, all you have
is the moving forward
into the city, and the call that says:
you’ve been preparing for this
your whole life.

That every good thing will come
undone does not make it all
make believe,
and when the world turns
upside down, and lovers become
strangers, and thieves
and betrayers
turn out to be the beloved
beside you in the dark

Even when the palms turn to
passion, even then
you can still throw your arms
open wide
and turn forgiveness
over and over
on your tongue
until it just falls
out

and you find yourself empty of
everything
for a moment –
until the breath begins
again, the rise, and the fall,
and the next morning comes,
gloriously steady with
Life.