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“I am impetus”
Me choose?
No.
I am choice,
I am impetus and consequence.
When I was a child
I thought I was myself
When I was a child
I thought I was more powerful
Than the world
Though now I know.
I am seaweed in the tide
Of a haunting moon.
And seven devils too
At war and in love
At midnight and on Mondays
We are legion
Mongrel, and knotted flesh
And not superheroes
None rises above
A mutant race
The world
Is supersaturated with souls
And lives spray, drift, crash, shift
And the waves mock the lines
We’ve scratched into our maps
The boundaries
The ink blurs, runs, stains
And the pitched waste roars
We are never ourselves alone
And nothing is untouched
Nor free to be indivisible
But history was always a universal solvent
Before I knew so
I was solute
I am myself a bit
But millions inscribe my soul
The cemeteries are lies
We are the gravestones of our fathers
We are the prisoners
Of a dead moon hanging. Read the rest of this entry »
(note: I actually didn’t mean to post this on the anniversary of 9/11. I didn’t write the poem with 9/11 specifically in mind and I did a double-take when I noticed this morning that I had posted it by accident on the hallowed date. Nevertheless, in a more general way I did write the poem in dialogue with a world that is filled with violence, that has been made weary and frayed by too many wars and bombings and genocides and lynchings and disappearings. It is in this world that I hold out my hands to Christ and ask him to give me a new song to play.)
Babylon Besieged
Children starve and nobles dance
But the poor weep
While we cannot
And I
I am a rich young ruler
Who has never known what it means to be alive
Though perhaps now
I am beginning to learn.
In such a world
I could have sung a brazen song, pretending
Life like a prop against the gate
Of Babylon besieged
But why
Should I disguise the sting of your poison?
My bloody heart.
I remember a day when
Golden sunlight anointed the dust
And I saw our future written in the clouds
The bombs fell so slowly
That the children played in the patterns
Of their shadows on the rooftops.
We have lived with death
And forgotten its meaning.
We have lived without life
And forgotten our purpose.
Today was born in smoke
I can’t see the city- I can’t see the street
Nevertheless, life has always been beyond my reach
And that is why I’m kneeling on the gravel
Here and now Friend
Reaching out my hands to you.
Will you fill them overflowing
With foolishness?
With a life I’ve never had?
I dream of a life
My city cannot understand
But I’ve heard your call
And I pray to you
Give me a heart.
My faith is kneeling in the bloody city
Beyond the irreversible stutters
And statics of the bullets
Of shells bursting in air
Beyond the dollars and dusts that numb the scars
Of souls malnourished
And overcoming all lonely tears and propaganda fliers
And overflowing dumps and empty hearts
Love cries a new song
Triumphant in death but never dying.
My Irreplaceable Friend,
In you I play a new song
Because you are the breath
That moves in me to love.
Here in Babylon the besieged
You are my breath
You are my love
You pick me up off the pavement
You set me on my feet again.
And for that
You have my love
And my devotion forever.
This is one of my favorite poems.
I was introduced to it from reading Eugene Peterson’s “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places”, which is incidentally a great book and one that I would recommend reading. =)
But enough of that- to the poem!
‘As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame’
Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844–89)
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves–goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Christ—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the feature of men’s faces.
Joseph- Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)
Joseph has come, the handsome one of this age,
a victory banner floating over spring flowers,
Those of you whose work it is to wake the dead,
get up! This is a work day. The lion that
hunts lions charges into a meadow. Yesterday
and the day before are gone. The coin of now
slaps down in your hand with the streets and
buildings of this city all saying, The prince
is coming! A drumbeat starts. What we hear
about the Friend is true. The beauty of that
peacefulness makes the whole world restless. Read the rest of this entry »
For this week, a poem from Wendell Berry, one whose message I can claim for myself as well… =)
A Warning to My Readers- Wendell Berry
Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.
This week’s poem is from a little book by a Russian poet named Yevtushenko (not your most well known poet, but good, I think). I got it for 50 cents at the English department book sale.
The Companion- Yevtushenko
She was sitting on the rough embankment,
her cape too big for her tied on slapdash
over an odd little hat with a bobble on it,
her eyes brimming with tears of hopelessness.
An occasional butterfly floated down
fluttering warm wings onto the rails.
The clinkers underfoot were deep lilac.
We got cut off from our grandmothers
while the Germans were dive-bombing the train.
Katya was her name. She was nine.
I’d no idea what I could do about her,
but doubt quickly dissolved to certainty;
I’d have to take this thing under my wing; Read the rest of this entry »
I think I’ll start a tradition of posting a poem every Friday.
Here is a deserving first- I think it’s beautiful.
Friend, in the Desolate Time
Friend, in the desolate time, when your soul
is enshrouded in darkness
When, in a deep abyss, memory and feeling
die out,
Intellect timidly gropes among shadowy forms
and illusions
Heart can no longer sigh, eye is unable
to weep;
When, from your night-clouded soul the wings
of fire have fallen
And you, to nothing, afraid, feel
yourself sinking once more,
Say, who rescues you then?-Who is the
comforting angel
Brings to your innermost soul order and
beauty again, Read the rest of this entry »
