Here's a poem about Ash Wednesday.
Didn't realize it was today till I saw folks walking back to work from St. Patrick's with ashes on their foreheads.
To all those who observe this day and the days that follow, may your contemplations be sweet and your prayers mighty!
Ash Wednesday
Turning away, turn away,
great emptying of
quotidian concerns
from the holy vessel,
with mysterious ashen
foreheads of women
heading west on
51st Street, coming
from St. Patrick's
On Fifth Avenue.
Turning away, turn away!
In the great changes
of history from Old Testament
sackcloth to baptismal
glories, transforming itself
during deathly days of middle ages
into penitance, what have we done,
What have we done?
Forty days of contemplations
and renunciations, turning
from outside to inside,
from emptiness to
great beseechings for
fulfillment,
to be filled like
empty vases
with great nectars
of resurrection.