Resurrection in a Dim Eye (Poetry by Bob Racine)

The following poem was inspired by the last few minutes in the TV miniseries “Jesus of Narareth,” directed by Franco Zeffirelli, first aired in 1976.

“Now it begins!”

So speaks the Pharisee standing at the entrance to the empty tomb,

transfixed in a space he has never visited before.

No drum roll, no earthquake, no Mosaic scroll of clouds!

The three words he can barely utter through quivering jaw

and teeth he cannot quite clench.

Around him the weave of a rumor,

that what has been silenced is about to speak again. 

Only henceforth it will take more than a clamoring throng

and the curiosity of a bystander to access the given Word -

an open heart and a searching soul at the very least.

Surely at some level he knows that!

How much does his orthodox brain perceive future epiphanies?

There is no jaundice in his eye as he views

the discarded, neatly folded robe, the candle flame

and the glimmering rock. 

Does he smell the ancient flesh transformed into timeless essence?

“Now it begins!”

Yes, he knows-   something!  Anticipates-   something!

But does he welcome it?

Must he confess to an injustice against God and the world

in the prosecution of this Nazarene carpenter?

That he can repent of easily enough, but

what about the deeper fear – that something in the

universal order of things has been changed forever,

that he is about to be left behind like a moldering relic?

Or has he been drawn at last into

the karma of the Cosmic Christ?

Yes, he knows!  “Now it begins!” 

The now that enfolds eternity

The now that will write new history

The now that will return ad infinitum

The now, the incessant harbinger of

Life Everlasting

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net

Elegy for the Tree (Poetry by Bob Racine)

Golgotha’s cross,

so mute you stand o’er us, bold of blood.

Must we cower before you in our grief,

cast down to the lowliest mud

on the dark side of belief?

Innocence meets in you its solemn end.

Evil is hence no mere mummer’s mask – 

untimely wounds, scars that won’t mend, 

jailer to take the soul to task!

Alas, for the tree as well we mourn!

As a knife is smelted from ore,

so you were born of its riven bark.

We grieve that it drinks sunlight no more,

now a cipher for death and the dark.

Conquer and divide!  your grisly intent – 

to cast aside the feet from the head,

the body’s and soul’s dismemberment,

even the living from the dead!

And that tree that had to die,

stripped naked to give you still birth,

uttered not a solitary cry.

Did it know what its life was worth?

Averse to your stunted embrace,

Quiescent, unconsumed, there seethes

a vestige of bounteous grace,

a breath the seeking soul yet breathes.

The world does well not to ignore

the suffering of the Christ,

for out of sacrifice so sore

has faith been purchased and priced.

But let some at least have a care

 – for the tree!

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net

Gethsemene Lament (Poetry by Bob Racine)

For three days beginning today I will be sharing three poems I have composed concerning the Passion of Christ – in observance of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. 

I dreamed I saw Gethsemane centuries later.

She did not stretch out her foliage to greet me; 

a wayside of Jerusalem shadows I found her.

She would speak not of her years long past;

only her coward’s heart would she disclose.

I watched her pass the night,

her memories more corrosive than the worms,

her flowers sprouting thorns in the dark, 

ready to prick and poison the hand of a thief 

feigning a gardener’s kiss or caress.

Her low-hung leaves drooped down in fetal despair

upon the overgrown footpaths.

Her dew would not freshen the morning;

it flowed like tears of grief out of desecrated affection.

Brokenhearted was she that mine were not 

the sandal-clad feet for which her lonely bosom pined.

Invade her blackness as I would

offering her the rich solitude of my pilgrim quest, 

she would only hold fast her stubborn watch,

looking past my face and smile for

some furtive following at my heels.

Bye and bye she sent me away, token-less.

Not far down the road I heard her moan 

at the sound of the world’s treachery

only she could hear

beyond the crooked line of her fence.

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net

One More Pre-1970 Movie Gem (Comments by Bob Racine

My apologies to all of you for leaving out in the last posting a very important dramatic movie masterpiece released between the postwar period and 1970.  This will enlarge the list to ten.  So sorry!

Touch of Evil

(1 hr & 51 min, b&w, 1958)

This I consider Orson Welles’ best directorial work next to “Citizen Kane.”  He portrays a resourceful man of despoiled soul and conscience – a police chief in a small Mexican border town, who resorts to the underhanded to solve a local murder.  Mexican narcotics officer Charlton Heston and Heston’s American wife Janet Leigh, traveling through on their honeymoon  are pulled into the dirty affair.  The script is based upon a novel by Whit Masterson, and the haunted and decadent atmosphere Welles creates to bring it alive on screen is astounding.  It is film noir in essence, though the setting is not some U.S. city but one just as creepy.  And as usual for Welles, the camera is no mere observer; it heightens our perceptions at every turn.  In fact, the footage opens with a four-minute reverse tracking shot that no cinematographer has ever since matched.  It will blow your mind.  Be sure to ask for the restored 111-minute version. 

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net