Commended: Élise Buckingham Lazell, Ash-Wednesday

Élise Buckingham Lazell

Commended, 2026 Tower Poetry Competition, 'A Riddle'

Ash-Wednesday

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?

What way is there to weave | out of the crimp-necked oriole’s
Wailing and wandering into the shade?
How is there life yet | to see between the sluices of cut light
Lilies assuming blossom? There is none, is there none
Of which to speak, to speak, to cry, to hold? I am and know
Nothing | of this (I know, I know, nothing I know, but to cast shadows
To the cypress, the cedar, the writhing wooded muscles
Which contract to bear His weight).

Lay we now in the dust of death, softly awake; what way is there to know
The way | away from death, forsaken death and grace within it?
In the fired plumage of the oriole the lips of lilies burn to glory, in ashes | peace.
I turn my burnt bones quiet;

My hands are light and empty.