Reflecting on the Cross

This Easter I've been searching for things to help me reflect on Christ's death and resurrection. I stumbled upon this poem just tonight in a book Dan got for me ages ago called 'The Poetry of Piety'.

'Diagonals:Hands' is by a guy named Francis Reginald Scott, who was the sixth son of a rector (St Matthew's Montreal), dean of a law school and founder of the New Democratic party of Canada. Sounds like he was quite the Renaissance man!

It's quite an 'experimental' poem, cross-shaped in form. Interestingly it can be read in a number of ways, including horizontally from left to right; diagonally from top left to bottom right and diagonally from bottom left to top right. On initial reading I think I like the last way the best - cross arms driving nails fastening gods hands - I think it's referring to humanity's role in Jesus' crucifixion.

Reading left to right - arms open, the cross forever upon sky... I like this phrase also, but confess I'm not entirely sure what it means. According to the notes in my book, the poem examines the paradox of the cross and looks at it from different angles, so maybe the cross as viewed by God the Father? And hammer these glittering nails into the sky - possibly convey Jesus' feelings of anguish and abandonment on the Cross?

Let me know what you can see; it's a bit like working out a crossword, hey?

Easter table - new traditions

Meantime, wishing you a very happy and holy Easter - Christ has died, Christ has risen,
Christ will come again!
helen xox

Suburban Blues

It's been a strange week. My start of year enthusiasm has waned a little with the arrival of March and the official end of Summer - though you wouldn't know it from the weather we've been having! Domestic life with my boys has been challenging, with my 1 year old being sick/clingy for the past few weeks and my 3 year old starting kinder and struggling to adjust to the new routine and expectations.

When things feel a bit out of control, I tend to seek solace in my comfort literature - usually texts I read at high school - Jane Austen, Jessica Anderson, Michael Ondaatje and the Norton Anthology of poetry. I think I'm trying to find someone who can give voice what I'm feeling, or just escape into another world for a bit.

Anyway, here's a poem we studied at school - 'Suburban Sonnet' by Gwen Harwood. It captures the feeling of marking time as a housewife in the suburbs; of trying to find an outlet for your talents and creative energies in between looking after your kids and the housework.

She practises a fugue, though it can matterto no one now if she plays well or not.Beside her on the floor two children chatter,then scream and fight. She hushes them. A potboils over. As she rushes to the stovetoo late, a wave of nausea overpowerssubject and counter-subject. Zest and lovedrain out with soapy water as she scoursthe crusted milk. Her veins ache. Once she playedfor Rubinstein, who yawned. The children caperround a sprung mousetrap where a mouse lies dead.When the soft corpse won't move they seem afraid.She comforts them; and wraps it in a paperfeaturing: Tasty dishes from stale bread.

It's a bit depressing, I know. Be thankful I didn't quote 'In the Park' with its plaintive mother's cry 'They have eaten me alive'!

Unlike the woman in the poem, I love my life and wouldn't trade it for anything. But I do relate to her feelings of frustration and the nagging sense that life 'out there' is passing her by. As an 'at home mum' it can be a temptation to succumb to boredom, loneliness, petty annoyances, vein-aching tiredness and mind-numbing daytime TV. On the other hand, there is the privilege of raising your kids and watching them grow, the chance to make new social networks and the challenge of stopping your brain from turning to mush, even in the way you organise your house and garden (veggie patch, anyone?).

I've been at home for almost 4 years now and have noticed that about every 6 months I have a little 'crisis' over my identity and question my decision to stay at home with the kids at least til they go to 'big school' (have never put that down in writing before!). I'm trying to see these crises as a good thing - it's an opportunity to take stock of who I am and what I want from this finite life under the sun.

Zest and love, helen xox