The themes of Lent are challenging, to say the least: introspection, self-denial, sin, repentance, loss, mortality, silence … Such contemplation prepares us for the joy of Easter; cleaning, tidying, and airing out our spiritual home so we can fully welcome the freedom of the resurrected Christ.

But if we’re not used to thinking about the finitude of our material forms, both the smallness and great consequence of our lives, this season can simply be overwhelming.

I often reach for poetry during Lent. It helps me engage the challenging themes of this preparatory season in a different way than Scipture and tradition. (“Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” as Dickinson says.) Below are a few of my current favorites. I hope they help you, too.

—Rev. Brendan Nee

“Mammoths and Ants,” by Anonymous (2nd Grade)

Look at the fragile mushrooms.
Look at the black widow.
Pause with me a moment,
and hear the cicadas humming.
Here is where I’m home, among the mammoth redwoods.
When I was lost, the ants absorbed me,
calling me to the smallness of Earth.
There I heard the Song of Silence.
Come with me through the miniscule.
Listen. The cicadas are humming.

“The Summer Day,” by Mary Oliver, in house of light

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

“In Praise of Fire,” by John O’Donohue, in to bless the space between us

Let us praise the grace and risk of Fire.

In the beginning,
The Word was red,
And the sound was thunder,
And the wound in the unseen
Spilled forth the red weather of being.

In the name of the Fire,
The Flame
And the Light:
Praise the pure presence of fire
That burns from within
Without thought of time.

The hunger of Fire has no need
For the reliquary of the future;
It adores the eros of now,
Where the memory of the earth
In flames that lick and drink the air
Is made to release

Its long-enduring forms
In a powder of ashes
Left for the wind to decipher.

As air intensifies the hunger of fire,
May the thought of death
Breathe new urgency
Into our love of life.

As fire cleanses dross,
May the flame of passion
Burn away want is false.

As short as the time
From spark to flame,
So brief may the distance be
Between heart and being.

May we discover
Beneath our fear
Embers of anger
To kindle justice.

May courage
Cause our lives to flame,
In the name of the Fire,
And the Flame
And the Light.

“I Confess,” by Howard Thurman, in Meditations of the Heart

The concern which I lay bare before God today is:
My concern for the life of the world in these troubled times.
I confess my own inner confusion as I look out upon the world.
There is food for all—many are hungry.
There are clothes enough for all—many are in rags.
There is room enough for all—many are crowded.
There are none who want war—preparations for conflict abound.

I confess my own share in the ills of the times.
I have shirked my own responsibilities as a citizen.
I have not been wise in casting my ballot.
I have left to others a real interest in making a public opinion worthy of democracy.
I have been concerned about my own little job, my own little security, my own shelter, my own bread.
I have not really cared about jobs for others, security for others, shelter for others, bread for others.
I have not worked for peace; I want peace, but I have voted and worked for war.
I have silenced my own voice that it may not be heard on the side of any cause, however right, if it meant running risks or damaging my own little reputation.

Let Thy light burn in me that I may, from this moment on, take effective steps within my own powers, to live up to the light and courageously to pay for the kind of world I so deeply desire.