Fishing in the Keep of Silence

There is a hush now while the hills rise up
and God is going to sleep. He trusts the ship
of Heaven to take over and proceed beautifully
as he lies dreaming in the lap of the world.
He knows the owls will guard the sweetness
of the soul in the massive keep of silence,
looking out with eyes open or closed over
the length of Tomales Bay that the egrets
conform to, whitely broad in flight, white
and slim in standing. God, who thinks about
poetry all the time, breathes happily as He
repeats to Himself: there are fish in the net,
lots of fish this time in the net of the heart.

--Linda Gregg (1942-2019), American poet, from All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems, 2008

Scripture reference: Luke 5:1-11, 5th Sunday after Epiphany C

God Speaks to the Soul

God speaks to the soul
And God said to the soul:
I desired you before the world began.
I desire you now
As you desire me.
And where the desires of two come together
There love is perfected.

--Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207-1292), Medieval German mystic and poet

The One

Green, blue, yellow and red –

God is down in the swamps and marshes
Sensational as April and almost incred-
ible the flowering of our catharsis.
A humble scene in a backward place
Where no one important ever looked
The raving flowers looked up in the face
Of the One and the Endless, the Mind that has baulked
The profoundest of mortals. A primrose, a violet,
A violent wild iris – but mostly anonymous performers
Yet an important occasion as the Muse at her toilet
Prepared to inform the local farmers
That beautiful, beautiful, beautiful God
Was breathing His love by a cut-away bog.

-- Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) Irish poet and novelist, from Collected Poems

Click here to hear this poem read by Padraig O'Tuama from NPR's On Being's website.

Vespers ["In your extended absence, you permit me"]

In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.

--Louise Gluck (1943- ), American poet,  and teacher, US Poet Laureate 2003,  awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2020 announced today, the first American so honored since Toni Morrison in 1993. Poem from The Wild Iris, 1992.

God is In the Roses

God is in the roses
The petals and the thorns
Storms out on the oceans
The souls who will be born
And every drop of rain that falls
Falls for those who mourn
God is in the roses
And the thorns

The sun is on the cemetery
Leaves are on the stones
There never was a place on earth
That felt so much like home
We're falling like the velvet petals
We're bleeding and we're torn
But God is in the roses
And the thorns

I love you like a brother
A father and a son
It may not last forever
But it never will be done
My whole world fits inside the moment
I saw you be re-born
God is in the roses
And that day was filled with roses
God is in the roses
And the thorns

--Rosanne Cash (1955- ), American singer-songwriter and author, from the album Black Cadillac, 2006

Notes From the Other Side

I divested myself of despair
and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching
one's own eye in the mirror,

there are no bad books, no plastic,
no insurance premiums, and of course

no illness. Contrition
does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us.
Our calm hearts strike only the hour,

and God, as promised, proves
to be mercy clothed in light.

--Jane Kenyon (1947-1995) from Constance (1993)

Photo: Crypt in a Barcelona Cathedral

How Humble is God?

How humble is God?

God is the tree in the forest that

allows itself to die and will not defend itself in front of those

with the ax, not wanting to cause them

shame.

And God is the earth that will allow itself to

be deformed by man's hands, but He cries; yes, God cries,

but only in front of His closest ones.

And a beautiful animal is being beaten to death,

but nothing can make God break his silence

to the masses

and say,

"Stop, please stop, why are you doing this

to Me?"

How humble is God?

Kabir wept

when I

knew.

-- Kabir (ca 1440-1518), Indian poet and mystic, from Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, Daniel Ladinsky, ed.

With my mouth, God says

'With my mouth,'

God says,

'I kiss my own chosen creation.

I uniquely,

lovingly,

embrace every image

I have made

out of the earth’s clay.

With a fiery spirit

I transform it

into a body

to serve all the world.'

-- Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), German Benedictine abbess, mystic, compose, poet, saint, Doctor of the Church, scientist, playwright, and visionary