Two Poems for Ash Wednesday--one old, one new

First, an old one--thinking about my Mother and her last Ash Wednesday on Earth:

The Last Ash Wednesday (February 2003)

After teaching my classes,

I drive over to Kevin’s house

Where Mom now lives after moving from Euclid

Our family home for fifty-one years.

It’s getting harder for her to go out,

So I come to her house,

Burn last year’s palm fronds in the ash tray

And anoint her forehead with the Sign of the Cross.

I find myself unable to utter the ancient words,

“Remember, Woman, from dust thou art,

And unto dust thou shallt return.”

The words are too painful, too real,

The abiding dust

too close.

Then Mom anoints my own forehead,

Again leaving the words unspoken:

No one can ever know . . . .

After the little ceremony,

We both laugh, and Mom says,

“Let’s drink a beer!”

“Not on Ash Wednesday,” I tease.

“The hell with that!” she retorts.

“I’m old enough now to be above the rules!”

We both laugh, and I pop open two beers.

We drink to Mardi Gras and to Lent,

And to the ashes on our foreheads.

                                                             Bob Coughlin

                                                                        February 21, 2007

                                                                        Ash Wednesday



And this evening, I went to St. Gabe's in Concord Township for mass and ashes. To my astonishment, there were about 400 people there. I thought about how much I love my Church and my fellow Catholics (and, by the way, I love people in other traditions very much too). This poem came to me after mass:

Thou Art Stardust

As a child, Monsignor John Fleming

Made the sign of the cross on my forehead

With the ashes of palm fronds, saying,

“Remember man, from dust thou art,

and unto dust thou shalt return.”

At St. Gabe’s this evening, 400 people came on a Wednesday

For mass and to celebrate this strange ritual of ashes—

Almost astonishing in this year of cruelty, 2018.

I wished I could have spoken different words

While anointing their foreheads with the cross—

Something like, “You, my friend, are stardust! Never forget that!”

Or, “You are my beloved son, daughter,

Mother, father, wife, husband, friend!

Anoint your beloved’s forehead

With your burning love!”

This Ash Wednesday, I think of

All those I love, the dead and the living,

From my Mom and Dad, long in the ground,

To my little grandchildren, one brand new.

You are stardust!

I love you!

                        Bob Coughlin

                        Ash Wednesday / February 14, 2018

[By the way, two inspirations for this poem, besides the reality of being there tonight at St. Gabe's--Chet Raymo's writing; and Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock." Raymo, an astronomer, once wrote that every molecule in our bodies was forged in a star. We are quite literally stardust.]