pictured words

a simple pairing of pictures and poetry

Category: Uncategorized

March 30, 2018

The Bloodstained Cross (Sonnet for Simon of Cyrene)

IMG_0975

Image credit:  http://catholicinbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2013/03/meditation-on-fifth-station-of-cross.html

God’s word says little of this man:  A Jew,
Pulled from the crowd to carry Jesus’ cross.
I wonder what he felt, and what he knew.
What ‘Jesus stories’ had he come across?

The Passover perhaps had drawn him there –
A dispersed Jew, returned to celebrate,
Who suddenly now had a cross to bear?
So little known.  So much to speculate.

But he was there, as God had preordained,
And I can’t help but think that he was stirred,
To look into the eyes of one so maimed,
Still full of grace. God’s only Son. God’s Word.

Oh Simon, what an awe-inspiring role …
You touched the very blood that saved your soul.

© Marie Elena Good, 2018

3 Comments
March 26, 2018

FAVORITES OF THE HEART (for Uncle Ray)

10341733_10152340881383600_4173467735118521098_n

Years ago, Dad called me.  “Did you get the news from Niles?”  Those seven words made my breath quicken. No, I hadn’t. “You didn’t hear from Judy?”  I gasped.  I heard my choking voice say, “Oh no!  Not Uncle Ray! Not Uncle Ray!”

No.  Not Uncle Ray.  Someone completely unexpected. Someone else I cared about.

God, forgive me.  What was I feeling, in the wake of an unexpected family death?  Relief?  To my embarrassment and dismay, yes.  Relief.  I actually sighed long and hard with that relief, and immediately confessed to Dad what I was feeling.  I don’t remember his response.  I remember not feeling judged for my human heart.  I remember believing this would remain between Dad and me and my God.  But it didn’t.  I’ve confessed it to a few others I love and trust.  To this day, I still feel the guilt well up on remembrance.  But, God …

Oh, the human heart
Which beat in Jesus, himself
For John, whom He loved.

© Marie Elena Good, 2018

UPDATE:  This event I wrote about last year took place 5 years ago.  Today, Uncle Ray actually passed from this life to the next.  09/10/19.

❤

4 Comments
March 21, 2018

FINAL ACT OF FATHERHOOD (a sonnet filled with love for my dad)

19280_262553333599_7258311_n

James F. Fagnano
January 7, 1932 – March 15, 2018

As you declined in health, we traded roles.
You, once a leader, now deferred to me.
Our switched positions jolted and left holes.
An altered beat, but how it had to be.

Your mind became confused, and body, frail.
I know you mourned your slipping stance as dad.
But in the end, your core was what prevailed –
Your father-teacher heart was ironclad.

I wanted terribly to be with you
When your heart halted beat, and breathed its last.
I told you I’d be back in “just a few.”
That short time I was gone, was when you passed.

It wasn’t happenstance. I think in fact,
It was a father’s final loving act.

© Marie Elena Good, 2018

8 Comments
March 4, 2018

MOM

27657619_10155628101688600_6004715281279615069_n

Patricia A. Fagnano:  March 16, 1931 – February 9, 2018

 

You walk into a room full of people and you ask

who has the best mother

and you can’t see faces in the crowd

for all the raised hands

but mine isn’t raised

 

it is grasping for Mom’s.

© Marie Elena Good, 2018

7 Comments
December 24, 2017

A WOMAN, CALLED (Second Sonnet to Mary, Mother of God)

25498379_10156148224728699_2221776543439268060_n

And who would take my word, this pregnant teen,
Who claimed an angel visited my room,
To tell me God Himself had set the scene
To place His Very Son inside my womb?

And how could I say anything but “Yes,
Be done to me according to Your word.”
And how could I be anything but blessed,
When first The Living Word within me stirred.

And how was I to know that God’s own Son
Would start His life inside a feeding trough,
And end on crucifix  (would anyone?),
Exploited, battered, bartered, “crowned,” and scoffed.

And when I think my womb shared blood with God,
Who gave me life? I’m humbled, blessed, and awed.

 

© Marie Elena Good, 2017

8 Comments
December 20, 2017

OF HUMBLE MEANS (Sonnet to the Newborn King)

 

 

free-nativity-scene-wallpaper-012

Public domain photo

Expectant couple travels far and fierce.|
She, full with child, atop a gentle ass.
He, worried as her sighs begin to pierce,
And finding there’s no room in inns they pass.

He, with no proper room to birth her child,
Secures a proffered stable to take rest.
The Babe comes quickly, there amidst the wild.
He frees her Son, and lays Him at her breast.

The Newborn listens to the bleating sheep.
The feeding trough He lies in smells of hay.
His weary mother tries to get some sleep,
Through rolling sounds of cry and bleat and bray.

Great throngs of angels revel in this day –
In lowly trough, there lies The Truth.  The Way.

 

© Marie Elena Good, 2017

4 Comments
December 10, 2017

Extravagance of the season

1917385_229230546350_4901916_n

Photo by Deanna Marie Metts

The extravagance 
of the season, embodied:
God, wrapped in infant.

 

 

Leave a comment
November 10, 2017

Untitled

14682056_886266818171902_2624628152035454911_o copy

He who directs my steps,
smooths my path.
He moistens my parched lips
with song.

© Marie Elena Good, 2017

2 Comments
October 4, 2017

Epiphanies (inspired by My Favorite Things)

772_50988656350_9923_n

Photo by Deanna Marie Metts

Toddlers that “get it,”
That first sense of humor!
Ultrasound showing
There’s two in her womb, or

Suddenly noticing
His shy, sweet stare.
These are some things
That are special and rare.

Seeing my mother
In my own reflection.
More often noting
Decreased recollection.

Pleasant occasions
In which I take part.
Still finding plenty
To capture my heart.

Years fly quickly,
Oh, so quickly!
Decades swiftly pass.
So value your loved ones,
Your home, and your life.
Acknowledge your brim-
full glass!

© Marie Elena Good, 2017

Leave a comment
September 25, 2017

THIS I KEEP ON DOING (a sinner’s sonnet)

1929056_76209021350_1150172_n

Photo by Deanna Marie Metts

 

“For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do –
this I keep on doing.” ~ Romans 7:19

Like Paul, I do what I don’t want to do.
The best in me is shallow as a shoal,
That barely covers that which is askew.
An ugliness lies deep within my soul.

Too quick am I to judge and criticize.
This goes against my core belief; my creed.
I want to see my fellow man with eyes
That focus on their value and their need.

I give to Christ my own besetting sin
And ask Him to unseat its hiding place.
I beg of Him to change me from within –
Remove what doesn’t bolster love and grace.

For He alone can break through this façade
To commandeer the part that’s deeply flawed.

 

© Marie Elena Good, 2017

4 Comments