Many years ago my friend and mentor Milania Austin Henley shared with me a poem written by her friend Claudette Drennan Kane upon the death of her son in 1993. Last year, in this season\u2014liturgical, historical\u2014I was drawn to it again. At that time I contacted Claudette’s husband Robert Hilary Kane, without a reply. I recently learned that three weeks later he had died. (My attempt to reach their surviving son has failed. I of course will remove this post upon request.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every mother’s faith is pummelled by the death of a child, and this moment in time, like too many others, causes us consciousness. As Claudette writes, we witnesses die too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Say Mary\u2019s Son was Schizophrenic Like Mine <\/em> These claws are thoughts of him, Peace, I beg, falling on the earth, But this is not peace. No. Exquisite \ufb02ight I scream, \u201cI was promised every sparrow would be counted!\u201d My heavy tongue, thick as molten lava, \u2014 Claudette Drennan Kane<\/p>\n\n\n\n Header image: A mother writhes Beneath a Tree on God’s Friday upon the death of her son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[265,188],"tags":[1474,1475,962,1358,1473],"class_list":["post-9288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetics","category-religion","tag-claudette-drennan-kane","tag-good-friday","tag-jesus","tag-mary","tag-milania-austin-henley"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Andrei-Rublev-Passion.jpeg?fit=1600%2C703&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paF2cn-2pO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9288"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9883,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9288\/revisions\/9883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
They Also Die Who Only Stand and Watch <\/em><\/p>\n
My grieving curling in my throat and in
My inner inmost skin raking and scraping.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a skeletal leaf, writhing and twisting
Over the loss of all he\u2019s worth,
Over the waste.
I press my face, for comfort, on the belly of the earth,
And \ufb01nd it a belly of stones. I grind my face to bones
Ripping away the vision of what he could have been.
Oh, for some thought, some thing of beauty,
To break my seeing, a symbol, anything to resemble
Some miracle of deeper meaning. And then I lift my eyes
Into the green beauty of a tree: into a feast, a godsend,
An inner room, a maze of \ufb01gured light,
Where breathing is a shimmer of a \ufb01guring wind.
I am a leaf: part of what I lie beneath.
I transubstantiate to ecstasy.
I vault to heaven and seven times seven
Are the leagues I leap off the tips of my boots.<\/p>\n
This is, but not peace. For oh I know this godsend
Is no simple miracle that I can comprehend:
One seed became a tree, one
Where thousands died. Only one
Ful\ufb01lled by chance, grew beautiful. Just one,
Where billions tried. A billion, billion, billion
Failures. Some feeling their failure, like my son.
How can I bear it.<\/p>\n
Shouting, \u201cA sparrow fell! See him! Count him!\u201d
How can I bear it.
Should I behold the beauty of a tree?
See a godsend\u2019s hidden history
In every wonder that touches me?
Simple miracles are what I want! Miracles I understand.
A tree that God can make with one word of command.
Not an enigmatic mirror where I darkly see
The swollen features of a horror: the tree of Calvary,
The mother standing by her son, watching him die.
How can I bear it. How can I bear it.<\/p>\n
Disgorges rage on all who cringe across my path, spits ash
On all who shrink from my choking smothering sorrow\u2014
Mary, help me, make it right. Give some sign
Besides \u201cI\u2019ll work for food\u201d to the wreck beside the road.
Passed by all the chanting winners,
Taking credit for their luck,
\u201cIt\u2019s mine! It\u2019s mine! I win because I work!\u201d
Chinking their medals, ringing their precious gold,
Oblivious as they pass to the weird bird lying in the grass.
Mary, help me, make it right, work a miracle
For him. Or if there are no simple miracles,
Count him crowned who falls in thorns and thistles,
Count His groans as sweet as warblers\u2019 whistles.<\/p>\n
Passion reenactment
from <\/em>Andrei Rublev,
Tarkovsky, 1966<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"