Wednesday, April 9—Day 36

When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
Luke 19:41-44

The Destruction of Jerusalem
György Rònay

The Destruction of Jerusalem is set during the siege of Budapest at the start of 1945, when for two months the Russian army fought to capture the city from the Germans, with the Hungarians caught in the middle of the horror. “The Destruction of Jerusalem” is translated from the Hungarian by Dalma Hunyadi Brunauer.
 

Here before your door I stand and knock—said the Lord

and stood before the door and knocked    Jerusalem’s

every door was locked   in vain the Lord rapped

and pleaded  doors hearts houses windows

everything was locked.

                                            He knocked and already there banged

the hail           He knocked and His fists

were bleeding           every door was locked

and He wept: City the hour

of your visitation has come              I’m here, I’m knocking

and it is not opened to me!              I see already the destruction

no stone remains upon stone, hear ye?      Here come the

eagles claws infant cries pestilence

and begs for food

                                    and He saw already the Beast

and the Hell of explosives.

                                                The city was throbbing

it had no time to open for Him it was bargaining

the Ancient of the City just sold his temple

no one had time        nasty punks with machine-guns were

herding trembling women               on the Danube

corpses were floating           blood-oozing, blind-eyed

corpses like bloated boats.

                                                I’m knocking

said He for the last time.

                                                Armed men ransacked

houses                        War arrived.

                                                He knocked

and covered His face.

                                                Night wild night blind night

blindly surging blood-soaked night!

                                                                        War

knocked and locks fell and walls

collapsed homes toppled gods

whined and crumbled among the carrion

with turned-out-eyes and straw-filled innards     Night wild night

blind night deadly night!

Under the scarlet ruins the

suffocating people imprisoned

in bunkers were knocking but every door was locked

every exit was cocked           in the streets

bullets were hissing              in the sky with flaming

swords angry angels were chasing

the souls of the damned—

                                                            Judas strewing his silver

money thirty pieces of silver among

exploding rocket’ cutting glare runs

his neck in a rope

                        and the winter wind blew the snow whistled

they ate every rat every newborn

they chewed off their own arms and thighs

and they froze to death and burned and died and

no stone remained on stone.

As it was foretold.

 

Rònay, György. “The Destruction of Jerusalem,” Robert Atwan, George Dardess & Peggy Rosenthal, editors, Divine Inspiration: The Life of Jesus in World Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) p 362-63

Prayer
God of love, whose compassion never fails; we bring before thee the troubles and perils of people and nations, the sighing of prisoners and captives, the sorrows of the bereaved, the necessities of strangers, the helplessness of the weak, the despondency of the weary the failing powers of the aged. O Lord, draw near to each; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Anselm, 1033-1109)