It’s Friday!!!!! Wow, what a week it has been for you and me. I’m sure all your hardwork has paid off or will pay off soon…some of you are probably ready to drop weak from all the hassle…but thankfully you won’t. Praise God!
Well, haven’t I some great news for you this week! See, I know many of my readers have probably not been to a country called Lithuania – I haven’t myself. But Lithuania has such a spectacle in a place called Siauliai (pronounced shoo-lay). It’s a little hill with a whooping amount of Crosses (mostly rosaries) strewn across its dense monumental field, some of which is brought here by pilgrims who come touring this site. However the chunk of the Crosses is specially planted here by the local devouts, most of whom lost relations and friends in many bloody uprisings once to have befallen the nation.
Now why would I bother you this week with something as unconventional as this. Well, the drift I want you to catch is the thought of the devotion with which people would commit themselves to such an idea. I want you to reflect on your own relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and see if you are this committed to Him. Should He be a hill as memorial as the striking Hill of Crosses in Siauliai, would you be as desirous of Him so as to adorn His plains with a thousand Crosses?
So the whole idea of a Hill of Crosses inspired me to come up with a poetry piece I’d like to share with you. My hope is that you’ll enjoy it and perhaps find in its verses the craving that will draw you closer to our Blessed Saviour.
Here we go:
Ever been there,
…To evergreen Lithuania?
Never once have I been here
Lest you someway do someday
You’ll find her in little Siauliai
North the road you can’t miss her
O ‘Tis a Hill of Crosses.
Intensely ‘mongst the pine woodland
Grows the million crucifix
Nay, you need not deified be
Nonetheless, you’ll find her fair
A simple staircase snakes up her
Escorting you all through her bliss
‘Tis one fine Hill of Crosses
Not so green, bounded sky blue
Handcrafted, silver-smithed, poly-caste
Pricey, cheap; grand and small
You’ll find them all
Overshadowing and being shadowed
Countless-coloured with rainbow flair
Mingling are both kitsch an’ sublime
Statuette angels bless legendary stares
Holding up the Virgin’s smile
Garnishing the green gridlock
With many a great Catholic garland
She’s a gorgeous holy hillock
She’s the Hill of Crosses
Once atop her uphill crown
Such music salutes your cheated ears
Eerie while yet beauty-full
Chinking chains endlessly rhyme
Flowing right down from your feet
All her treasures at your leisure
Mind him not who broke your heart
Loneliness left right your doors
All these crosses make so sure
Once upon a time ago
On Golgotha’s mercy hill
Your peace was bought priced so high
So that once upon this height
Falling’s next to impossible
On this virtuous Hill o’ Crosses
When you do come down the hill
And she asks, the snow-haired nun
Nay, say not that you planted none
Even if you never did so
In your heart of hearts you know
O what great ingrate you’ll be
Coming all the way still loving hate
Take her hand and kiss it dear
She’ll then tell all about her
Of all her bloody uprisings
And of the Soviet purging too
Her hinglish flow somewhat slow
Your bus will leave yet without you
‘Bet you’d still wish never to move
Yet you’ll exit her shores at last
Her memory apprised in your soul
Her crosses firmly ‘stablished there
Upon the picturesque knoll in heart
Though you never did lodge one
Upon her evergreen freedom soil
Just like scores the resolute guest
Who have once come sightseeing
Their yield-less heads discerning-less
Though tens hail from worlds so high
So loveless unenthused’s their hike
Till they meet the snow-haired nun
Down below the Hill o’ Crosses
Beaming with patriotic pride
Sits her cottage at her feet
Her love-tale sets sail betide
Till you’re through her pure black tea
And the plunge down history lane
Scenery and mastery married
Lo, the Cross-hill sure makes sense
What mighty smeltered cross you’ll lay
‘Twixt the cluttered ranks so dense
Budding up the Lithuanian Hill
O Siauliai’s cultured Cross-hill
That now besets my heart so
© Kwame Otu Sakyi
