POEMS for LENT • AT JERUSALEM'S GATE

"At Jerusalem's Gate" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

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"No light shoots from / his fingertips. / His voice calls down / no fire. / And yet, they say / a fig tree withered / at his word." and "singing Hosanna! / Hosanna! Hosanna! / as if my very life depends upon it." —from "At Jerusalem's Gate" by Nikki Grimes, as found in At Jerusalem's Gate: Poems of Easter

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With Palm Sunday tomorrow, my "Poems for Lent" reading project comes to an end tonight. (Yes, Lent technically runs until Easter day, but I knew I would be using Palm Sunday, and therefore the start of Holy Week, as my ending point.)

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I decided that I wanted a poem with religious themes to end my days of reading poem upon poem, so I chose one of the poems from At Jerusalem's Gate by Nikki Grimes. They are the text of a kid's picture book with beautiful, bold, and brilliantly-colored woodcuts by David Frampton.

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These aren't mostly poems of Easter, but of poems of the Passion and what leads up to Easter.

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This particular poem reflects upon the arrival of Jesus at the gates of Jerusalem and his entry into the holy city.

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I wanted to capture the city itself, but using elements of the Palm Sunday story. Therefore, I opted to reflect the colors of the cloaks thrown down upon the road through the gate. I imagined the New City of Revelation (as shown to John of Patmos), though, and so made twelve gates in which to enter—a gate for each of the tribes of Israel (and the sons of Jacob); a gate for each of the Apostles; the number of perfection (3, representing divinity, multiplied by 4, representing creation)—with ten of those gates bound by stone and iron (representing the Laws), one bound by moon, and one bound by sun.

And, as Nikki Grimes presses a bit against the story of the Passion and asks questions, and allows doubt to make an appearance, all the while returning to a faithful stance in the end; I decided to play a bit, but then likewise return to the simple and the faithfully representational.