by Ken Sehested
Kyrie, kyrie, eleison
Let mercy magnify
May all my days reflect thy praise
And earth and heav’n reply
Let nothing justify my way
Save grace, unmeasured still
Let every hour reflect thy power
And life with love instill
Other Poems
Grayed days and clouded sighs
Note to a friend
by Ken Sehested
A note from a dear friend—hospital-bound, IV-fed, on New Year’s Eve and in the isolation ward, no less—
accompanied by a gray landscape photo from her window, inspired an impromptu poem
which captures my emotions in the haggard season in which we live.
The colorless days spur us to stir memory’s store
Read more ›Most ordinary of days
A prose poem for "Ordinary Time"
by Ken Sehested
There are, to be sure, moments of high drama in the work of holy obedience:
marches to be made, confrontations to be staged, dangers to be endured,
corruption to be exposed, trips made to distant or unfamiliar places,
occasional rackets to be raised, maybe even jail cells to be filled.
On rare occasions, the whole world is watching.
Read more ›Lamentations’ call to arms
A poem inspired by the book of Lamentations (especially chapter three)
by Ken Sehested
Turn off (what passes for) the news.
Boycott the season’s electoral charades.
Don’t give in to Pokémon’s promise of
“augmented reality.” Attend instead to
unmitigated reality: bloodied, stricken
and strewn. Offer grief the hearing it
demands, the voice it obliges, and
the risk it assumes.
When not even Wendell Berry’s “peace
of wild things” will suffice—the wilderness
itself being salted and assaulted—turn to
the Lamentator’s naked confession for
uttering the heart’s howling confusion
amid terror’s ambush.
Prayers while throwing stuff
Pondering grief from Baghdad to Baton Rouge, Medina to Minneapolis, Dhaka to Dallas (and points in between)
by Ken Sehested
We each pray for different
reasons in different seasons,
too often steady-headed,
manners-minded, when
indelicacy is now needed
—prayers while throwing
stuff against the wall—
whether in rapture or in rage,
banging against the cage of
knock-off propriety,
boorish pleasantries,
self-referencing piety
when it is precisely this
self-bordered life
that must be breached
if blood-soaked streets
are to stand a chance
in the light of
Judgment Day’s inquest,
crippled heart recoiling
from what it fears,
jaundiced against all
it cannot control,
cheered by death’s leer
and sacred call to arms—
lest justice be denied!—
but brutal arms they be,
assaulting arms, separating
tissue from bone,
breath from lung,
hands from caress,
babies from breasts,
words from truth,
hopes from healing,
vision from revealing
the ties that bind
but do not strangle,
the lover’s reach which
does not entangle,
the wing that shadows
but never wrangles.
Dare to rave within
Heaven’s hearing!
Scorch the roof of your
mouth with incantation.
Hurl your disquieted heart
at every tranquil caution.
Risk unpleasantry in the
company of angels.
Demand a hearing with
the Most High.
Journey with Job into
the whirlwind’s gale.
Demand an answer:
This Is My Song
New lyrics to an old song
by Ken Sehested
O Truth Untamed, all boundaries bow before You
All borders bend according to your Word
O grant that every bitter heart be harbored
In sheltered cove, with Mercy’s flag unfurled
Hearken and haste, Desire of every nation
Refresh the heart of hope too long deferred.
Let every mountain call to meadowed valley
And every stream, to ocean grand and wide
Let fertile ground announce the new creation
When all shall come, ’cross every great divide
O bell of liberty ring out for freedom
Break every slaver’s chain, with hope confide
My Country, ‘Tis of Thee
Alternate lyrics
My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
We are a people free, joining in liberty our many throngs.
Through much diversity, grant solidarity,
Turning from enmity in joyful song.
Guiding us in the past, God’s hand has held us fast, God’s pow’r we feel.
May righteousness be claimed, true justice be sustained;
Spirit, with us remain, Christ’s love reveal.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi
Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world (John 1:29)
by Ken Sehested
Does the Lamb of God truly take away
the sins of the world? The question is
more than a forensic exercise. The
question brings us to a momentous
fork in the road.
§ If so, then how can we who affirm this
conviction fail to live into its consequences—
promised though not yet prospered—of
withdrawing from and standing against
the logic of retaliation and every
bloodletting endeavor. It is not
JUST WAR.
It is
just war.
Summon your nerve
A call to the table on Pentecost Sunday
by Ken Sehested
I would love to think approaching
this table conferred visions of
leisurely picnics in green meadows
beside gentle bubbling streams,
with cooling breeze matched by
warm sunshine and birdsong in
nearby long leaf pine and hemlock.
Truth is, it’s more like unleavened
bread, hastily prepared under dark
skies when death angels rout the
countryside, on the eve of betrayal
and the cusp of terror, in a land on
the brink of ecological collapse and
lead-lined water pipes poisoning
the young and an infestation of
woolly adelgid leaching the life
from majestic forests.