The Wind Stirs Up The Leaves In All The Gardens: A Crown of Sonnets On the Fourteen Stations of the Cross

by Lisbeth Smedegaard Andersen (Gracia Grindal, translator)

from LF Spring 2019

Below is Lisbeth’s forward to her book Nu Lægger Vinden sig i Verdens Haver explaining the genesis of the crown of sonnets:

The way of the cross meditations take as their origin the stations of the cross piety of the Middle Ages from the close of the fourteenth century.  The tradition arose from a wish to have the Via Dolorosa in a closer environment where people, during the period before Easter, could undertake a pilgrimage along mountain paths, marked by pictures with motifs from Jesus’ way of sorrow. Soon it came to pass that there was a growth of stations and meaning in these images, with texts from the Bible mixed in with legends, and prayers and texts for meditating upon during the pilgrimage. 

For many years there were just fourteen stations, but recently there has come to be a fifteenth, one for the resurrection. That worked nicely with the crown of sonnets with its fourteen lines, and the last sonnet, the fifteenth, made up of the last line of each sonnet, making a fifteenth. It made for an almost natural form in the stations on the way of the cross. 

I have followed the classic order of the stations and used the traditional texts and legends, and found other biblical citations for “Jesus meets his mother” and “Veronica.”  For Jesus’ three falls with his cross, I have used the Ephesians’ hymn as a basis.

I

The wind stirs up the leaves in all the gardens
The giant trees still drab with winter grey
Stand quietly as though their thoughts were hidden
And soughing softly as time passes by

Go slowly now while evening’s dying embers
Lay charred beneath the hawthorn’s bramble leaves
See light is fading all the colors blending
Into the blue of Holy Thursday eve

But images persist around they rummage
In those who sit forgotten in their prisons
And others who are punished after judgment

Who only fool the ones who are naïve
And think that good and evil make no difference
While under darkness meddling with our lives

Jesus is condemned to death 
John 19: 5-6a

II

And under darkness meddling with our lives
While others sleep, the judge confesses only
He knows the truth he knows is relative
The water dripping from his hands is holy

Since others stoop to do his dirty job
To lay the cross upon the doomed one’s body
And drive him to the city’s place of slaughter
Where many criminals were hammered up

But why this hate and why was he betrayed
The deaf can hear the blind whose eyes are opened
Now clearly see what has been prophesied

What is this thing this serpent gnawing blindly
Unceasingly with lies till faith is broken
Cold terror will make slaves for cruel wardens 

Jesus bears his cross
John 19:17

III

Cold terror will make slaves for cruel wardens -
They lay the bricks on bricks of straw and clay
And groaning as they suffer with their burdens
Toward goals they barely can recall or say

Forgetting once they sang of light and morning
The desert blossoms as a rose appears
The pine trees flourished in the sandy forests
With birdsongs chorusing a golden year

The pilgrim’s way they should have finally finished
A holy way for all the great and small
Huge temple walls but they have lost the vision

A dream so grand they’ll not see it arrive
For it will crush them they will trip and fall
And say death is the basic fact of life.

Jesus Falls the First Time with his Cross
Philippians 2:5

IV

They say death is a basic fact of life
But what about the mothers who discovered
How joy was born when first they marked inside
the first new life beneath their heart was moving

and felt the tenderness when they were nursing
mouths reaching for their breasts skin next to skin
Then terror comes so one must be rehearsing
The words one needs to pray  how to begin

That God will chase the shadows back far back
And give them ordinary sunny mornings
So they will never, ever—clothed in black—

Reach out their empty hands with love toward them
Be pushed away and stand alone in mourning
As lullabies turn into requiems

Jesus meets his mother
Luke 23:29-30

V

As lullabies turn into requiems—
hear clanging horseshoes pounding on the pavements—
There’s no place free and no one is at home
Who can forget who can find sleep who craves it

And who will bear the cross just now at midday
When desert grass needs water for its thirst
Sirocco winds bring grains of sand like powder 
That color all the blossoms white with dust

When morning’s coolest hours are fled and vanished
Someone must bear the cross for someone else
And follow after him who’ll one day vanquish 

And overthrow the rulers from their kingdoms
And hear the cries for mercy and themselves
Now sounding a lament within the maelstrom

Simon of Cyrene
Luke 23:26

VI

Now sounding a lament within the maelstrom
A voice that’s borne upon a hideous gall
As frightful as the piercing of the vision
That barely casts a shadow on a wall 

But grows into a mighty calling here
Where no one trusts that things can be made better
A cynic’s world for those who lust for pow’r 
Know only they should reach out try to settle

spontaneous love can see another way
Behind the blood and sweat God’s face transfigured
And where they vaguely turn their glance away

And twist upon their heels and head for home
With all their greatest questions still unanswered
Now in the dark of night pure evil roams

Veronica
Colossians 1:15

VII

Now in the dark of night pure evil roams
Runs freely past the cloudy grey horizon
With Jesus driven from Jerusalem
And gladness from all worldly enterprises

He came from God who knows where hinds are calving
And sees when hedgehogs hide themselves in holes
He now lies stretched on earth, his hands are trembling
Like wings of wounded sparrows whom he knows

And here there are no songs or waving branches
It’s only flies and dust and Roman force
A way we each must take alone abandoned

That day they called him Savior and Redeemer
But now to be a friend of his who dares
Where crowns of thorns are woven from rose briars

Jesus Falls the Second Time
Philippians 2:6-7a

VIII

Where crowns of thorns are woven from rose briars
And barbed wire wreathes the edge of prison walls
the women clothed in black parade like choirs
With pictures of the disappeared their young

But go back to their empty rooms again
To weep for children who have not existed
They cannot be consoled till all are found
And rescued from the vacuum where they’re missing

Like birds without their nests, like dark black swallows
That chase through air, their sweet songs turned to shrieking
With piercing cries in madrigals of sorrow

Like endless rocking and sorrowful sighing choirs 
That presses wrath for more than one small token
A generation dreaming of its course

The Daughters of Jerusalem
Luke 23:27-28

IX

A generation dreaming of its course
That leads to happiness for just this moment
To live before the face of God restored
to calm unanxious gladness and enjoyment

And love existence—yes and to be simple
To trust and hope for all, go through the door
His place shall not know of him anymore
Be woven into loneliness and wimpled

In this short life for good or even ill
To see that we have something we can own
Of all eternity an instant filled

For those with wounds that time will not make better
And sorrows no one else will ever know
In Jesus’ life the truth that moves forever

Jesus Falls the Third Time
Philippians 2: 7b-8

X

In Jesus’ life the truth that moves forever
Through all time every moment with the flame
He set upon the earth and used to mold it
With fire, a living fire, so wild it seems

That it can light a pyre so hearts are burning
So see him there a silent paschal lamb
A picture showing suffering and shame
A crown of thorns around his bloody forehead

And no desire for it in all the prisons
And no one heard that when his garments fell 
That hell’s great portals shrieked on rusty hinges

As death and Satan trembled at his word
When he stood naked there and gave up all
just like a branch that grows from bone dry earth

Jesus is relieved of his clothes
Luke 23:34

XI

just like a branch that grows from bone dry earth
Where no small thing can find a bite for eating
Where lies and evil flee before his word
And crowds of people gather for his teaching

Why were these women swaddled in their tears
Along the way that coiled round like a serpent
An echo of an ancient sound so fervent
Disguised like love behind a friendly voice

Do not go gentle into that good night
And why to end here as the food for ravens
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

And stop as hammers pound and then take hold
And all the nails have turned his hands to crimson
Like fire in the hedge of burning gold 

Jesus is nailed to the cross
Luke 23:33

XII

Like fire in the hedge of burning gold
Makes embers of the air and sands now flying
While all the birds grew silent at his dying
The powers of darkness took the light from day

Now in the garden hear the strong winds roar
Against the temple pillars huge as mountains
The tree of stars unravels in the heavens
Like ashes when he shrieks its piercing short

But hid from all—the Jews, the Greeks, the heathen—
While earth gapes open ready for his blood
And Satan casting dice for all his clothing

The place of skulls where scorpions are feeding
The spring bursts forth a strong life-giving flood
To Easter lilies with their golden beakers

Jesus dies on the cross
John 19:40

XIII

The Easter lilies with their golden beakers
Are trampled down when ladders are put up
Look, shadows in the night where they are stealing
To quietly remove his lifeless corpse 

Go gently from the rock his place of dying
Where night’s dead carcass takes it final trip
A place with thistles thorns and blackthorn pips
Now turned by God to nothingness and ruin

Look east and see the way where they are bearing
The dead along the pathways black as rivers
The kindled brook like bands of asphalt ribbon

Behind them rests the hill Golgatha’s height 
An empty cross with only moon light glimmers
Left full of light on this dark springtime night.

Jesus is taken down from the cross
John 19:40

XIV

Left full of light on this dark springtime night
The small young birch with naked pale white branches
And so we leave earth’s joylessness behind 
Though God has hid his face—we’re left abandoned

And only have the words Out of the depths
O God, to you our frightened cries are rising
Before the grave is closed and the last flecks
Of color in the nail-pierced hands are dying

O all this darkness in the cemetery
With flickering shadows on the graveyard paths
What helps are the flowers, the wreaths we are braiding

For it is our own life that we have buried
And cast the earth on all the prophet’s wrath 
The wind stirs up the leaves in all the gardens

Jesus is laid in the grave
John 19:41-42

XV

The wind stirs up the leaves through all the gardens
While in the darkness meddling with our lives--
Cold terror makes the slaves for cruel wardens 
Who say death is a basic fact of life

As lullabies turn into requiems
Now sounding a lament within the maelstrom
As in the dark of night pure evil roams
When crowns of thorns are woven from rose briars

A generation dreaming of its source
In Jesus’ life the truth that really moves us
just like a branch that grows from bone dry earth

Like fire in the darkest thorny hedge
And Easter lilies with their golden beakers
Are filled with light in this dark springtime night

The Empty Grave
Philippians 2:9-11

Gracia Grindal is the hymn and poetry editor for Lutheran Forum.

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