A Sonnet for Ascension Day

Here is a sonnet for Ascension Day, the glorious finale of the Easter Season.

In the mystery of the Ascension we reflect on the way in which, in one sense, Christ ‘leaves’ us and is taken away into Heaven, but in another sense he is given to us and to the world in a new and more universal way. He is no longer located only in one physical space to the exclusion of all others. He is in the Heaven which is at the heart of all things now and is universally accessible to all who call upon Him. And since His humanity is taken into Heaven, our humanity belongs there too, and is in a sense already there with him. “For you have died,” says St. Paul, “and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” In the Ascension Christ’s glory is at once revealed and concealed, and so is ours. The sonnet form seemed to me one way to begin to tease these things out.

This sonnet is drawn from my collection Sounding the Seasons, published by Canterbury Press here in England. You can hear the sonnet by clicking on the ‘play’ button if it appears in your browser or by clicking on the title of the poem.

Ascension

We saw his light break through the cloud of glory
Whilst we were rooted still in time and place
As earth became a part of Heaven’s story
And heaven opened to his human face.
We saw him go and yet we were not parted
He took us with him to the heart of things
The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted
Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings,
Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness,
Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,
Whilst we our selves become his clouds of witness
And sing the waning darkness into light,
His light in us, and ours in him concealed,
Which all creation waits to see revealed.

Republished with gracious permission from Malcolm Guite’s website.

This essay first appeared here in May 2019.

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The featured image is “Ascension of Christ” (c. 1640) by Giacomo Cavedone (1577-1660), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.