Art and LiteraturePoetry

Paschal Moment

Sometimes it’s in the very first bite
Sometimes in the smooth savoring
Sometimes just after it’s fully consumed
But in each action there is that moment
Some call it bliss, or perfection, or Heaven
Or doing the hokey-pokey, turn yourself around
A seventh sense, perhaps, something nous
Where it seems the state you are in
What you are doing at that instant
The crunch and gush and swallow
The rush of sensations paused, or
Continuing with no change or alteration
In a passionless passion not passing
But lasting as if it is the lastest last thing
The thing you should always be doing
That you were created to be doing
With which you should never be done
 
Sometimes it’s all about the apple
Sometimes the voice in vesperal tone
Sometimes it’s the third vigilant hour
But there’s always that paschal moment
The open throat pitched perfectly
The juices flowing inside and out
A moment comprising all time and space
Where you are wider than the Heavens
And the Heavens as narrow as you
And all time is condensed in your instant
And your instant will be eternal
 
But the taste is just a foretaste
The voice is only a prophecy
Always the vigil and never the feast
The eternal always dies in the temporal
And even forever comes to an end
 
Sometimes the Paschal moment comes quickly
Sometimes it seems to come suddenly too soon
Sometimes there’s too much left after it’s gone
But usually it’s hard to get and requires labor
Liturgy and synergy and eulogy and energy
Devotion and emotion and affliction and transfixion
Oration and creation and foundation and formation
It must be created but cannot be manufactured
A divine image not made with hands
But laces you to all things with heartstrings
And condenses everything into a single tear
 
Someday it will be more than only firstfruits
Someday the song will grow only sweeter
Someday the bridegroom will come to table
And serve us himself forevermore forever more
And the Paschal moment will be, it will be
The moment in which was said “Let it be”
And creation and recreation and incarnation
And inception and crucifixion and resurrection
And a time, and times, and half a time
And in no time at all the moment will never end
The bliss, the perfection, the Heaven
Continuing with no change or alteration
In a passionless passion not passing
But lasting as if it is the lastest last thing
The thing you should always be doing
That you were created to be doing
With which you will never be done

Kenneth O'Shaughnessy

Kenneth O'Shaughnessy

A Northerner by upbringing, Kenneth has lived in the South since his (first) college days. After returning to college, he began to do more than just dabble with writing, and has self-published a children's picture book, a middle-reader's book, and several collections of poetry. Baptized in the Roman Catholic church, raised in the fundamentalist Baptist church, and having spent time in the Reformed Baptist church, Kenneth settled down in the Eastern Orthodox church in 2006.

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