As we rejoice in the risen Lord, all of us Dominican Sisters of Hope wish you and yours Easter blessings. Thank you for reading and allowing us to accompany you through your Lenten, and now Easter!, journey. May the joy of the resurrection dwell in and through you bringing with it new life.
“No Room for Death”
by Emily Bronte
There is not room for death
Nor atom that His might would render void:
Thou — Thou art Being and Breath
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.
This short poem appeared on op.org as an Easter selection. Its brevity appeals to me. The imagination can play with all of its suggestiveness, including why its title refers to death rather than Resurrection– an Easter poem??
Prominent among a number of glimmers of meaning for me stands its resonance with parts of prayers offered at the Vigil, e.g.,from one of “This is the night” verses: “This is the night, when Christ broke the prison-bars of death/and rose victorious from the underworld.” or from the letter to the Romans ( 6:8-10) : “We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him. As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God.
For me, the richness of subtle reference in these few lines of poetry to much of Scripture and our liturgies of the Vigil and Easter Sunday stress a basic aspect of the Resurrection story. They offer us the opportunity to ponder possible meanings for our own lives — and maybe even how we consider our own deaths — today.
I am a lover of words and the many artful ways in which they can be arranged, written and spoken. Yet, I sometimes tire of their less-than-artful use in much that I read and hear today. So, the brevity of this poem appeals to me.
Are there appealing aspects of it to you? Does it speak to you in any way of the glorious celebration of Easter Sunday and the mystery of the Resurrection of the Christ? Tell us in the comments section below.