Day 1, Sonnet 1

Awake! With furrowed brow receive the ash.

The sacramental smudge adorns a face

Quite bare, but for the tear upon a lash

Where forty days’ solemnity makes grace.

What penitence for one whose broken path

Has too oft trodden through ascetic pain?

For self-denial, too, is holy wrath

When deep starvation takes His name in vain.

If alms be words from faithful poet’s pens

And fasting be a lack of harmful speech

Then take up language for these days of Lent

With psalms and verses close within your reach.

While in the wilderness seek higher grounds

And write in faith ‘til Alleluia sounds.