Every Riven Thing

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he’s made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he’s made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he’s made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made.


--Christian Wiman (1966- ), American poet, essayist, writer, former editor at Poetry magazine, and former Southern Baptist.

The God of Gentleness

Divine Gentleness 

   Descend upon us
That we may
   Encourage
   Rejoice
   Forgive, and
   Console one another
All the days of our lives.

– Sister Mary Murray, OP (Dominican Sisters of Sparkill)

Vespers ["Once, I believed in you"]

Once I believed in you; I planted a fig tree.
Here, in Vermont, country
of no summer. It was a test: if the tree lived,
it would mean you existed.

By this logic, you do not exist. Or you exist
exclusively in warmer climates,
in fervent Sicily and Mexico and California,
where are grown the unimaginable
apricot and fragile peach. Perhaps
they see your face in Sicily; here we barely see
the hem of your garment. I have to discipline myself
to share with John and Noah the tomato crop.

If there is justice in some other world, those
like myself, whom nature forces
into lives of abstinence, should get
the lion's share of all things, all
objects of hunger, greed being
praise of you. And no one praises
more intensely than I, with more
painfully checked desire, or more deserves
to sit at your right hand, if it exists, partaking
of the perishable, the immortal fig,
which does not travel.

--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.

Photo by Christine Grillo, From Last Word on Nothing blog, "Guest Post: The Death of a Fig Tree: My Climate Change" found here.

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.

The Worship of the Universe

Whose ear has ever heard how all trees sing to God? Has our reason ever thought of calling upon the sun to praise the Lord? And yet, what the ear fails to perceive, what reason fails to conceive, our prayer makes clear to our souls. It is a higher truth, to be grasped by the spirit: ‘All Thy works praise Thee’ (Psalm 145:10). We are not alone in our acts of praise. Wherever there is life, there is silent worship. The world is always on the verge of becoming one in adoration. It is man who is the cantor of the universe, and in whose life the secret of cosmic prayer is disclosed.”

--Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man’s Quest for God, 82

At the River Clarion

1.
I don't know who God is exactly.
But I'll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a
          water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices
          of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck the stone it had
          something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing
          under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me
          what they were saying.
Said the river: I am part of holiness.
And I, too, said the stone. And I too, whispered
          the moss beneath the water.

I'd been to the river before, a few times.
Don't blame the river that nothing happened quickly.
You don't hear such voices in an hour or a day.
You don't hear them at all if selfhood has stuffed your ears.
And it's difficult to hear anything anyway, through
          all the traffic, and ambition.

2.
If God exists he isn't just butter and good luck.
He's also the tick that killed my wonderful dog Luke.
Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then
          keep on going.
Imagine how the lily (who may also be a part of God)
          would sing to you if it could sing, if
                    you would pause to hear it.
And how are you so certain anyway that it doesn't sing?

If God exists he isn't just churches and mathematics.
He's the forest, he's the desert.
He's the ice caps, that are dying.
He's the ghetto and the Museum of Fine Arts.
He's van Gogh and Allen Ginsberg and Robert
          Motherwell.
He's the many desperate hands, cleaning and preparing
          their weapons.
He's every one of us, potentially.
The leaf of grass, the genius, the politican,
          the poet.
And if this is true, isn't it something very important?

3.
Of course for each of us, there is the daily life.
Let us live it, gesture by gesture.
When we cut the ripe melon, should we not give it thanks?
And should we not thank the knife, also?
We do not live in a simple world.

4.
There was someone I love who grew old and ill.
One by one I watched the fires go out.
There was nothing I could do

except to remember
that we receive
and then we give back.

5.
My dog Luke lies in a grave in the forest,
          and she is given back.
But the river Clarion still flows
          from wherever it comes from
                    to wherever it has been told to go.
I pray for the desperate earth.
I pray for the desperate world.
I do the little each person can do, it isn't much.
Sometimes the river murmurs, sometimes it raves.

6.
Along its shores were, may I say, very intense
          cardinal flowers.
And trees, and birds that have wings to uphold them,
          for heaven's sakes--
the lucky ones: they have such deep natures,
          they are so happily obedient.
While I sit here in a house filled with books,
          ideas, doubts, hesitations.

7.
And still, pressed deep into my mind, the river
          keeps coming, touching me, passing by on its
                    long journey, its pale, infallible voice
                              singing.


--Mary Oliver, (1935- ) from Evidence: Poems, 2009