Baptismo Sum

When we were experimenting with glass etching cream on Thursday, my spouse wanted me to look up the Latin phrase "Baptismo Sum."  We've both been taught that Martin Luther used it as he washed each morning, saying "I am baptized" in Latin so that he remembered this essential truth each day.

So I Googled it and said, "Look, there's my poem."  It was published in Sojourners in 2005, and I am so delighted that it comes up first or second in a search for the Latin word.  True to Google form lately, I couldn't find out what I wanted to know.  But instead of my usual frustration at how bad search engines have become, I had the happiness of being bounced to a poem of mine--a poem that holds up.

I'll paste the poem below, since Sojourners does limit how many articles one can view.  But if you want to see it at the Sojourners site, go here.  Sadly, the artwork that originally appeared with it is not there, but the poem is preserved.

Baptismo Sum

In this month of dehydration,
we keep our eyes skyward, both to watch
for rain and to avoid the scorn
of the scorched succulents who reproach
us silently, saying, "You promised to care."

And so, although we thought we could stick
these seedlings in the ground and leave
them to their own devices, we haul
hoses and buckets of water to the outer edges
of the yard where the hose will not reach.

The idea of a desert seduces,
as it did the Desert Fathers, who fled
the corruption of the cities to contemplate
theology surrounded by sand
and stinging winds. My thoughts travel
to the Sanctuary Movement, contemporary Christians
who risked all to rescue illegal aliens.
I admire their faith, tested in that desert crucible.
I could create my own patch of desert in tribute.

Yet deserts do not always sanctify.
I think of the Atomic Fathers
who hauled equipment into the New Mexico
desert and littered the landscape with fallout
which litters our lives, a new religion,
generations transformed in the light of the Trinity test site.

I back away from my Darwinian, desert dreams.
The three most popular religions
in the world emerged from their dry desert
roots, preaching the literal and symbolic primacy
of water, leaving the arid ranges behind
as they flowed toward temperance.

I cannot reject the religion of my ancestors,
who spent every day of their lives
remembering their baptism before heading to the fields
to make the dirt dream in colors.