This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is by Cynthia Erlandson.
The Flask of Oil: Impending Pentecost
II Kings 4:1-7
Go, gather empty vessels, for the oil
Is ardent to be poured, implores release.
Impatient, like a wave, it crowds the brim,
Importunate to overflow at whim,
As fire will spread, or water flood the soil.
Now hollow jars and cruets, piece by piece,
Are summoned as a chose congregation.
Like skeletons they rattle, pot to pot.
Divided, oil begins to multiply:
The tiny source with plentiful supply
Pours life into them, and a new creation
Appears by fiat, made from what was not.
Replenish, Lord, your vessels made of clay,
With holy oil on this Whitsunday.
Cynthia Erlandson is a poet and fitness professional. Her three collections are These Holy Mysteries, poems for the church year; Notes on Time, a tribute to the themes of time and music; and Foundations of the Cross and Other Bible Stories, which was published last year by Wipf and Stock. Her poems have appeared in The Book of Common Praise hymnal, First Things, The Society of Classical Poets, The Catholic Poetry Room, Modern Age, and elsewhere. She is a Top Four winner of the 2023 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest.
