Two Poems by Paul Hooker
Passing Things
A generation goes, a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
Ecclesiastes 1:4
The sun rises against its will
would choose the comfortable quilt of darkness
over ineluctable morning.
The earth turns.
Obvious things, mentioned for
the obviousness of things, the tiresome rote
of days. Yet beneath, something different.
Something new.
Swelling, pulsing, throbbing like
unsatisfied longing, hangover from a
future held politely to the lips
but not drunk.
Something is passing away—
disease, an order, a way of life, a dream—
We will all survive this, we are told.
Some, not all.
José Ameal survived
the Spanish Flu. Nineteen eighteen. He was four.
From his bed he peeked through drawn curtains
looked outside
to watch the souls passing by—
“so many dead”— on the streets of Luarca
in north Spain. Did he wonder if his
turn would come?
He lived to be imprisoned
by Franco, bury his wife in ’fifty-one,
marry another and live fifty
more good years.
Something is passing away.
We peek through drawn curtains at the procession
of souls. We wonder if today our
turn will come.
Tomorrow the sun will rise
reluctant, as though choosing its darkling quilt
over inevitable morning.
The earth turns.
Resurrection
Before the dawn, he slips into the flow
so silently no star in heaven hears
nor earth beneath, nor even hell below.
It seems it hasn’t been like this for years.
Silence reigns. No star in heaven hears
the subtle, scuttling last retreat of death.
He thinks it hasn’t been like this for years;
it would be such an effort to draw breath.
The subtle, scuttling last retreat of death
rolls the stone aside, and now the breeze
suggests the effort of unsteady breath.
Nothing in this life is done with ease.
Stone rolled aside. The movement of the breeze
wafts the acrid dust stirred from the floor.
Not so, he thinks; the one thing done with ease
is dying. Living always summons more.
Wafting, acrid dust stirs on the floor.
Another moment: could he just abide
in dying? Living summons. There is more:
they want his blood, their fingers in his side.
Another moment. Rest, and just abide.
But then the nostrils twitch and muscles move;
the blood flows into fingers at his side,
rising from the deep abyss of love.
The nostrils twitch, and now the muscles move.
Neither earth beneath, nor hell below
can stop this rising river, deep with love.
His time has come. He slips into the flow.
Paul Hooker is Associate Dean for Ministerial Formation and Advanced Studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, TX. He has spent 40 years in the ministry of the PC(USA), serving congregations as pastor, a presbytery as its executive and stated clerk, and in academia. He is the author of several works in his academic field of Old Testament Studies, and has published a collection of his poetry, Days and Times: Poems from the Liturgy of Living, in 2018. He is husband to Pat; father to Chris and Bethany; grandfather to Madison, Adam, and Eli; and obedient servant to Calder, the dog. He loves fly fishing and playing jazz bass.