The Song of Ruth

 Ruth:1-18

 

          The voice I hear this passing night was heard 

                   In ancient days by emperor and clown: 

          Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 

                   Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 

                          She stood in tears amid the alien corn 

                                                - John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale."

We six came apart slowly,
like a child plucks petals from a flower.

First Elimelech, the father
whose name and protection showed me that
My God could be kind;
he left us not yet old. And we wept,
and tore our garments, wore
ashes like a waxen crown.
Yet we had each other,
Chilion and Orpah, Mahlon and Ruth—
and we girls embraced you, dear Naomi,
whose loving heart was a foreign land
that made us forget the cruelties of our youth.

I remember well
the day I entered your house;
the swallow had woven her nest on your lintel
and sang honeyed notes.
To be greeted with a kiss and a sweet 
word from you, Naomi,
of pleasant face and lovely gaze, remains a balm
to one who had been declared
a burden by the one who bore me into this world—
I drew the first free breath of my life.

Your son beautiful and strong
as my bridegroom, my young stag
brought down by Death 
the remorseless hunter.

The last, sputtering pillar of our lives
crumbled to earth that last day,
the day that Mahlon’s breath left him.
Chilion, too, sleeping in the dust
went down before his brother,
our wails keening like a skylark in flight.

“Turn back to your mother’s house,”
you told me, with tears
as bitter as the name you now claim.

My sister Orpah kissed you, her face lined with
tears tracing watercourses of the Negev, weeping
from the well of grief
you would think had run dry by now.
She turned her nape to us reluctantly, persuaded
by your pleas.

                           But not I.

The nightingale’s song lays a path
straight to my heart’s core;
I would rather 
stand in tears in an alien field, 
homeless as a nightjar, gleaning
for the reluctant scraps left behind
under your Law’s commanded compassion
than return to the cold dwelling of my birth.

Your heart is my mother’s house and hearth:
I who first knew kindness with you
will trace the arc of my life within your embrace
even unto Death’s final stitch in my winding-sheet. To you
will I cling beyond my last breath.

In the midst of your people
will I pitch my tent;
your God will I worship,
whose lovingkindness I know in your eyes.

I would rather shelter with you, rootless
under the cold light of foreign stars,
wandering without a doorway of our own
than be parted from you, ever. Your tenderness
the only inheritance I claim, your embrace
I will never surrender. With you
I will lodge in Bethlehem, 
lay my life upon altars
to a God known only through your friendship,
and give you descendants dancing like constellations
to banish your bitterness,
to secure you a home redolent of bread,
abundant with the attar
of roses.

This poem was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul, October 28, 2021.

Dominus regnavit

With our own joy, we will take up the song
Of all creation: Jesus Christ is king!
The whole earth will be glad, for there has sprung,
A light for all the righteous who will bring
A final judgment to the earth, as bright
As lightening, and the round world will ring
With jubilation. For the mournful night
Of our long exile will be ended then
As darkness flees before his glorious light,
The bright ark of his covenant. And when
We see that holiness unveiled, the dark
Devices, all the substitutes, the vain
And empty images, the shoddy work
Of our own hands will fall to nothingness
For Christ himself will shine as the true ark.

--Malcolm Guite (1954- ), English priest, poet, singer-songwriter, musician, and theologian, from his blog.

Scripture reference: Psalm 97

Blind Bartimaeus

As Jesus went into Jericho town,
Twas darkness all, from toe to crown,
About blind Bartimeus.
He said, “My eyes are more than dim,
They are no use for seeing him:
No matter-he can see us!”

“Cry out, cry out, blind brother-cry;
Let not salvation dear go by.-
Have mercy, Son of David.”
Though they were blind, they both could hear-
They heard, and cried, and he drew near;
And so the blind were saved.

O Jesus Christ, I am very blind;
Nothing comes through into my mind;
‘Tis well I am not dumb:
Although I see thee not, nor hear,
I cry because thou may’st be near:
O son of Mary, come!

I hear it through the all things blind:
Is it thy voice, so gentle and kind-
“Poor eyes, no more be dim”?
A hand is laid upon mine eyes;
I hear, and hearken, see, and rise;-
‘Tis He! I follow him!

-- George MacDonald (1825-1905), Scots minister, poet, fairy tale writer.

Scripture Reference: Mark 10:46-52, Proper 25 B

Love's Body

Lean in! I was a child, and spoke like one;
        My thought? very like a child’s.
                I gripped my reason with both
my little fists. It smelled suspiciously of milk.
        Now, as a man, I’ve learned to let it go.
                Just now, we squint to see the Image through
this latent, bleak obscurity. One day, we’ll see the Image—
        as Himself—gleaming from each face.
                Just now, I puzzle through a range
of incoherencies; but on that day,
        the scattered fragments will cohere.
                In all of this, both now and ever,
faith and hope and love abide, these
        sacred three, but the greatest of these (you surely
                must have guessed) is love.


-- Scott Cairns (1954- ) English professor at Mizzou and Orthodox Christian, reconceiving 1 Corinthians 13:11-13 by St. Paul the Apostle

Spit and dirt, said the blind man

when he left Christ’s side
himself no more a blind man
since Christ gave him sight.

Men who looked like trees
the first sight he saw.
Only a former blind man
could see us as we are

recognize how rare
specify how far
apart our being
and our seeming are.

What could he do but stare,
blink away the spit and dirt,
watch Christ wipe his hands
on his blinding white shirt?

-- Angela Alaimo O'Donnell, in The Christian Century, 2015

Scripture reference: Mark 10:46-52, Proper 25B

Dawn Revisited

Imagine you wake up
with a second chance: The blue jay
hawks his pretty wares
and the oak still stands, spreading
glorious shade. If you don't look back,

the future never happens.
How good to rise in sunlight,
in the prodigal smell of biscuits -
eggs and sausage on the grill.
The whole sky is yours

to write on, blown open
to a blank page. Come on,
shake a leg! You'll never know
who's down there, frying those eggs,
if you don't get up and see.

--Rita Dove (1952- ) African American poet, US Poet Laureate 1992, teacher, advocate, and novelist

Autumn Song

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf? 

And how the swift beat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain,
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
Knowest thou not? and how the chief
Of joys seems—not to suffer pain? 

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf? 

--Dante Gabriel Rosetti (1828-1882), English Romantic poet, artist, and painter

When the Frost in On the Punkin

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover over-head!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too!...

I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—
I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

-- James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), Indiana newspaperman, orator, children's author, and poet, known as "the Hoosier poet" for his work

Indian Summer

There’s a farm auction up the road.
Wind has its bid in for the leaves.
Already bugs flurry the headlights
between cornfields at night.
If this world were permanent,
I could dance full as the squaw dress
on the clothesline.
I would not see winter
in the square of white yard-light on the wall.
But something tugs at me.
The world is at a loss and I am part of it
migrating daily.
Everything is up for grabs
like a box of farm tools broken open.
I hear the spirits often in the garden
and along the shore of corn.
I know this place is not mine.
I hear them up the road again.
This world is a horizon, an open sea.
Behind the house, the white iceberg of the barn.

--Diane Glancy (1941- ), Cherokee American poet

The Contemplative Life

Abba Jacob said:
Contemplation is both the highest act
of being human, and humanity’s highest language.
If the language of things reaches beyond things
to designate the Absolute,
the silent interior mantra
bespeaks a profound communion
with that Someone further than ourselves—
and communion within
ourselves, for the two go together.
When we meditate, we enter
paschal mystery, the frontier between death and life.
Egyptian mythology has a wonderful image
of the pass from life to death: a great ship
which bears us to eternity. Charon
is the great passer of Greek mythology,
helping souls cross the River Styx from life to death.
Christianity turns it around: Christ
is the greatest passer, helping us pass
from death to life.
Contemplative life is always making the passage
from death to life, from humanity to divinity.
It is always taking the risk of being human.

There is an extraordinary message from the grave
as to what it takes to be human: a letter
from a Cistercian monk, one of seven
who had their throats cut
by Muslim fundamentalist terrorists
in their monastery in the mountains of Algeria
about ten years ago. Their prior
left a letter, just in case:
they knew it was probably coming,
they knew they were at great risk.
The letter was found and published.
Here is how it ends:

     To the one who will have killed me:

     and also you, Friend of my final moment,
     who would not be aware
     of what you are doing,
     yet, this: Thank you.
     And adieu to you.
     For in you, too,
     I see the face of God.

Abba Jacob wiped his eyes.
Interval of birdsong from the veranda.

He’s seeing not an abstract God,
but a God who has assumed a face,
a God who shows him this face
in every one of those Muslim brothers and sisters,
including the one who kills him.

Contemplative life has no frontiers.
And it is the heritage of all humanity.
Through contemplation we enter
into communion with everybody.
And this leads to service.
But that’s a subject
for another day.

--Marilyn Nelson (1945- ), African American poet, teacher, author, children's author, and poet laureate of Connecticut 2001-2006, from Best Spiritual Writing 2009.

A Ream of Paper

I have a ream of paper,
a cartridge of ink, 

almonds,
coffee,
a wool scarf for warmth. 

Whatever handcuffs the soul,
I have brought here. 

Whatever distances the heart,
I have brought here. 

A deer rises onto her haunches
to reach for an apple,

though many fallen apples are on the ground.

--Jane Hirshfield (1953- ), American poet, translator, and essayist, from Ledger

At Thomas Merton's Grave

We can never be with loss too long.

Behind the warped door that sticks,
the wood thrush calls to the monks,
pausing upon the stone crucifix,
singing: “I am marvelous alone!”
Thrash, thrash goes the hayfield:
rows of marrow and bone undone.
The horizon’s flashing fastens tight,
sealing the blue hills with vermilion.
Moss dyes a squirrel’s skull green.
The cemetery expands its borders—
little milky crosses grow like teeth.
How kind time is, altering space
so nothing stays wrong; and light,
more new light, always arrives.

-- Spencer Reece (1963- ), Episcopal priest and poet

Image: The Dalai Lama at Merton's grave, 1997

To David, About His Education

The world is full of mostly invisible things,

And there is no way but putting the mind’s eye,
Or its nose, in a book, to find them out,
Things like the square root of Everest
Or how many times Byron goes into Texas,
Or whether the law of the excluded middle
Applies west of the Rockies. For these
And the like reasons, you have to go to school
And study books and listen to what you are told,
And sometimes try to remember. Though I don’t know
What you will do with the mean annual rainfall
On Plato’s Republic, or the calorie content
Of the Diet of Worms, such things are said to be
Good for you, and you will have to learn them
In order to become one of the grown-ups
Who sees invisible things neither steadily nor whole,
But keeps gravely the grand confusion of the world
Under his hat, which is where it belongs,
And teaches small children to do this in their turn.

-- Howard Nemerov (1920-1991), poet and teacher at Washington University in St. Louis