HOLY WEEK: Choices — The Mustard Seed Conspiracy

for Holy Saturday

What way is there left to choose
after what’s been done
to who we’ve chosen?

This is not what I expected, Abba—
you said come, costly,
but all I could see was a new road
to the tree of life on a far hill,
those thousands of desperate feet
leaping like deer and
I didn’t believe you.

Now you tell me wait, joy,
but all I can see is a shorn tree,
ivory bones the only moon in
noonday darkness,
what’s left of the garden
from knives and scattering feet
and I still don’t believe you.

But these coals and hillside skin
I do remember, and the fire
that lived low in your eyes
when you said Abba,

when you asked your questions too
when the sun had dipped
so bloody low and
you chose.

“CAN YOU TAKE 30 MINUTES OF YOUR DAY TODAY TO SIMPLY SIT AND WAIT IN JOYFUL ANTICIPATION? NOTICE WHAT COMES UP IN THIS TIME OF STILLNESS.”

Fran Westwood is an emerging Canadian poet writing from Toronto. She writes poems that help her pay attention, often on finding belonging and bridges in diverse landscapes.

Fran’s work has been published by Contemporary Verse 2, the Poetry Pub and For Women Who Roar. She has pieces forthcoming in Prairie Fire, Inanna's Canadian Women Studies journal and in a 2021 collection by Flying Ketchup Press.