The Ashes of Wednesday

Freshness finds unknown spaces
within our chest walls,
unnoticed dark innocent

       untouched

Spaces perk to the touch
of freshness when
those encounters happen with a foreign

Pronoun it he she any
sounds of it
images of she
ruddy aroma of he

Brings forth freshness
In a way that literally draws breath in--
to places we wager must be nooks of the lung
somehow virgin to air

until now.

Wednesday ashes of burned
palm branches dried for nearly a year
during communal anticipation
to set those accordion necks ablaze!

O how we love to burn things!
To see that flame feel that heat,
to change something so completely

When there's so much we cannot
as it he she changes us with annoying ease!

Power sparkling bright within us
yet feeling the limited time of July's fire of rainbows
about to fall to
invisible,
 we feel the edge of madness
and shout,

"Burn!  Burn!  Burn!  At least I can burn you!"

And the ashes
get smeared on my forehead where
women of another faith
dot themselves with red dyes
from stirring sacred communal preparation.

Ashes as such once meant dirtiness to me,
innocent biological dirtiness, that is, really
light gray or black flakes of dirt

that lift

with the faintest air.

Now, today
ash is a fresh Pronoun
(even though it's so familiar and old
since my dad helped me to spell a-s-h
for that test
on wide-ruled paper)

Fresh again because the priest looked above my eyes,
his cheeks so kind in their pudginess
pressing his thumb with that burned soft blackness
a cross my forehead
repeating "Remember
you are dust and to dust you will return."

How could those kind, pudgy cheeks be so harsh?

morbid. heavy. words.
they startled my pleasantness
for a moment
I forgot those spaces existed,
had just been discovered with accidental joy!

Then air hit another space

       untouched

within the chamber walls this time
of my ear, so much closer to my mind
than the heart, and thus quite significant

When spaces of fresh faith open and
are found
so near to the skeptical waves
and doubting synapses and thin myelin sheaths and--

"I will make your life again
from those very ashes
with my hand that molded Adam
in the playful joy of children
forming castles from chaotic sands and seas."



by Troy Ahrens
Composed Ash Wednesday, February 22, 2012