March 2026 Slice of Life, No. 29
Last week I shared a sonnet by poet-priest Malcom Guite, “Palm Sunday” (read my post). Today, on Palm Sunday, as we enter Holy Week, I am sharing a poem, also named “Palm Sunday,” by Marie J. Post. With haunting beauty, Marie Post captures the antithesis between Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his arrest, trial, and crucifixion later in the week. She accomplishes it with a the use of juxtaposition within each stanza.
Palm Sunday
Astride the colt and claimed as King
that Sunday morning in the spring,
he passed a thorn bush flowering red
that one would plait to crown his head.
He passed a vineyard where the wine
was grown for men of royal line
and where the dregs were also brewed
into a gall for Calvary’s rood.
A purple robe was cast his way,
then caught and kept until that day
when, with its use, a trial would be
profaned into a mockery.
His entourage was forced to wait
to let a timber through the gate,
a shaft that all there might have known
would be an altar and a throne.
–Marie J. Post (1919-1990)
Read more about Marie J Post.
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