Everything is Plundered

Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,

Death’s great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?

By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.

And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses—
something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.

--Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), Russian poet and activist against Stalinism, translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayvard

Joy and Peace in Believing (Olney Hymns, XLVIII)

Sometimes a light surprises 

   The Christian while he sings; 

It is the Lord who rises 

    With healing on His wings; 

When comforts are declining, 

   He grants the soul again 

A season of clear shining, 

   To cheer it after rain. 

In holy contemplation 

    We sweetly then pursue 

The theme of God's salvation, 

    And find it ever new; 

Set free from present sorrow, 

    We cheerfully can say, 

E'en let the unknown to-morrow 

    Bring with it what it may! 

It can bring with it nothing, 

    But He will bear us through; 

Who gives the lilies clothing, 

    Will clothe His people too; 

Beneath the spreading heavens 

    No creature but is fed; 

And He who feeds the ravens 

    Will give His children bread. 

Though vine nor fig tree neither 

    Their wonted fruit shall bear, 

Though all the field should wither, 

    Nor flocks nor herds be there: 

Yet God the same abiding, 

    His praise shall tune my voice; 

For, while in Him confiding, 

    I cannot but rejoice.


-- William Cowper (1731-1800), English poet and Anglican hymn writer.

Cowper struggled with tragedy and depression his entire life; his friend John Newton suggested he begin writing hymns as therapy while Cowper was committed to an asylum.

Vaclav Havel on Hope

 

“… the kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation… it is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. I don't think you can explain it as a mere derivative of something here, of some movement, or of some favorable signs in the world. I feel that its deepest roots are in the transcendental, just as the roots of human responsibility are… 

“Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpromising the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. in short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only hope that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from ‘elsewhere.’ It is also this hope, above all, that gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.”

-- Vaclav Havel, poet, playwright, dissident against communism leader of the Velvet Revolution, Czechoslovakian president, from Disturbing the Peace, pp. 181-2, cited in part by Seamus Heaney, The Redress of Poetry, 4.

Forest Sonnet, Whidbey Island

(For a friend in grief,
for the assurance of resurrection )

 

 

Now, no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
No mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for."
     --from “Spring and Fall,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins



Here Sorrow springs and newborn Spring sorrows;
Their grief resolves in fiddleheads tomorrow.
The mournful poet sees the greening leaf
and vaults ahead to autumn's parting grief....

An anticipatory grief, so-called.
Here last year's leaves lie trodden, branch scraped-bald
From winter's remnant grip. But see, as Spring
Flushes first rosy throat, as thrushes sing

God's glory! Still, larks chirruping, skimming
The winds arise from southern vales, brimming
Their blessings upon the restive, waking Earth.
The forest floor will testify that birth

Sings from subsidence, converting death
God's gravid Spirit-- resurrection's breath.

--This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 11, 2022.

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

- Maggie Smith (1977- ), American poet and mother, first published in Waxwing journal, 2016.

Prop Us Up on Our Leaning Side

“A pastor of a small church would occasionally call on one gentleman to pray, and every time this one particular guy would pray, he would end with the strangest statement, “And, oh Lord, prop us up on our leaning side.”

Finally, the pastor pulled him aside, and he said, “I love the way you pray, but I don’t understand your little closing phrase. What are you talking about – prop us up on our leaning side?” He responded, “Well, Pastor, I’m a farmer. I live out on the farm and, you know, I live in the country. I’ve got an old barn, and it’s been there a long time. It’s been through a lot of weather, and a lot of storms, and a lot of bugs have eaten at it.” 

He said, “I got to looking at it one day when I was riding on my tractor, and I noticed that it was leaning to one side. So I thought to myself, oh my goodness! The barn is leaning, and it’s a matter of time before the whole thing falls. 

He continued, “So, you know what I did? I went and got some pine beams, and I propped it up on its leaning side.” He said, “It still leans, and probably always will. But I propped it up on its leaning side. And it’s not going to fall down because I propped it up on its leaning side. And I got to thinking about it. 

When I was on the tractor, Pastor, and I was riding in the field, I thought about the kind of year I’ve had, and some of the storms I’ve been through, and some of the people that are bugging me, and eating away at my joy and eating away at my spirit. And I just got to thinking, you know, I’m still here! I’m still standing after all that stuff I’ve been through. The storms, and the howling winds – they couldn’t topple me. I’m still standing by the grace of God.”

He concluded, “From time to time, I find myself leaning. Leaning toward my old desires, leaning toward anger, leaning toward becoming bitter or hateful at the people who are bugging me, or leaning toward going back to the old habits and the old life I used to have. And when I feel myself start to lean toward that tendency, I just remember that old barn, and I pray out loud - "Lord, thank you for propping me up on the leaning side." 

- Jentezen Franklin

A New Year's Poem

A New Year's Poem

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rimes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), Poet Laureate of Great Britain for much of Victoria's reign

Burning the Old Year

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

--Naomi Shihab Nye (1952- ), Ferguson-born Palestinian-American poet, from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems, 1995

Cloud Anthem

Until we are clouds that tear like bread but 
mend like bones. Until we weave each other
Like silk sheets shrouding mountains, or bear
gales that shear us. Until we soften our hard
edges, free to become any shape imaginable:
a rose or an angel crafted by the breeze like
papier-mache or a lion or dragon like marble
chiseled by gusts. Until we scatter ourselves –
pebbles of grey puffs, but then band together
like stringed pearls. Until we learn to listen to
each other, as thunderous as opera or as soft
as a showered lullaby. Until we truly treasure
the sunset, lavish it in mauve, rust, and rose.
Until we have the courage to vanish like sails
into the horizon, or at peace, anchored still.
Until we move without any measure, as vast
as continents or as petite as islands, floating
in an abyss of virtual blue we belong to. Until
we danced tango with the moon and comfort
the jealous stars, falling. Until we care enough
for the earth to bless it as morning fog. Until
we realize we're muddy as puddles, pristine
as lakes not yet clouds. Until we remember
we are born from rivers and dewdrops. Until
we are at ease to dissolve as wispy showers,
not always needing to clash like godly yells
of thunder. Until we believe lightning roots
are not our right to the ground. Though we
collude into storms that ravage, we can also
sprinkle ourselves like memories. Until we
tame the riot of our tornadoes, settle down
into a soft drizzle, into a daydream. Though
we may curse with hail, we can absolve with
snowflakes. We can die valiant as rainbows,
and hold light in our lucid bodies like blood.
We can decide to move boundlessly, without
creed or desire. Until we are clouds meshed
within cloud sharing a kingdom with no king,
a city with no walls, a country with no name,
a nation without any borders or claim. Until
we abide as one together in one single sky.

--Richard Blanco (1968- ), Cuban-American LGBTQ poet and teacher, from Poems of Resistance, Poems of Hope, edited by Naoli Shihab Nye, 2020.

Ode to Dirt

Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you,
I thought that you were only the background
for the leading characters -- the plants
and animals and human animals.
It's as if I had loved only the stars
and not the Sky which gave them space
in which to shine. Subtle, various,
sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain,
you're our democracy. When I understood
I had never honored you as a living
equal, I was ashamed of myself,
as if I had not recognized
a character who looked so different from me,
but now I can see us all, made of the
same basic materials –
cousins of that first exploding from nothing –
in our intricate equation together. O dirt,
help us find ways to serve your life,
you have brought us forth, and fed us,
and who at the end will take us in
and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit.


--Sharon Olds (1942- ), Pulitzer Prize winning American poet and teacher, from Poems of Resistance, Poems of Hope, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye, 2020.

Follow

Let the river rock you like a cradle
Climb to the treetops, child, if you're able
Let your hands tie a knot across the table.
Come and touch the things you cannot feel.
And close your fingertips and fly where I can't hold you
Let the sun-rain fall and let the dewy clouds enfold you
And maybe you can sing to me the words I just told you,
If all the things you feel ain't what they seem.
And don't mind me 'cause I ain't nothin' but a dream.

The mocking bird sings each different song
Each song has wings - they won't stay long.
Do those who hear think he's doing wrong?
While the church bell tolls its one-note song
And the school bell is tinkling to the throng.
Come here where your ears cannot hear.
And close your eyes, child, and listen to what I'll tell you
Follow in the darkest night the sounds that may impel you
And the song that I am singing may disturb or serve to quellyou
If all the sounds you hear ain't what they seem,
Then don't mind me 'cause I ain't nothin' but a dream

The rising smell of fresh-cut grass
Smothered cities choke and yell with fuming gas
I hold some grapes up to the sun
And their flavour breaks upon my tongue.
With eager tongues we taste our strife
And fill our lungs with seas of life.
Come taste and smell the waters of our time.
And close your lips, child, so softly I might kiss you,
Let your flower perfume out and let the winds caress you.
As I walk through the garden, I am hoping I don't miss you
If all the things you taste ain't what they seem,
Then don't mind me 'cause I ain't nothin' but a dream.

The sun and moon both arise
And we'll see them soon through days and nights
But now silver leaves are mirrors, bring delights.
And the colours of your eyes are fiery bright,
While darkness blinds the skies with all its light.
Come see where your eyes cannot see.
And close your eyes, child, and look at what I'll show you;
Let your mind go reeling out and let the breezes blow you,
And maybe when we meet then suddenly I will know you.
If all the things you see ain't what they seem,
Then don't mind me 'cause I ain't nothin' but a dream.
And you can follow; And you can follow; follow...

--Jerry Merrick (?-2019), American singer-songwriter, famously covered by the late great Richie Havens on the 1967 album Mixed Bag

Sonnet

My heart be brave, and do not falter so, 
Nor utter more that deep, despairing wail. 
Thy way is very dark and drear I know, 
But do not let thy strength and courage fail;  
For certain as the raven-winged night 
Is followed by the bright and blushing morn, 
Thy coming morrow will be clear and bright; 
’Tis darkest when the night is furthest worn. 
Look up, and out, beyond, surrounding clouds,
And do not in thine own gross darkness grope,
Rise up, and casting off thy hind’ring shrouds,
Cling thou to this, and ever inspiring hope: 
 Tho’ thick the battle and tho’ fierce the fight, 
 There is a power making for the right.

--James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), African American poet, teacher, newspaperman, and lawyer

Only Hope

There is peace for the restless one. 
There is peace for the restless one. 
She was on the verge of thinking, 
that her soul was lost and sinking. 
There is peace for the restless one. 

And you, you where my only hope, 
but could you really care for me. 
I even asked the Holy Ghost. 
Are you the one I love the most, 
are you the one to set me free? 

There is hope for the broken one. 
There is hope for the broken one. 
He was gone from the land, 
when cupid reached and took his hand. 
There is hope for the broken one.

And you, you where my only hope, 
but could you really care for me. 
I even asked the Holy Ghost. 
Are you the one I love the most, 
are you the one to set me free? 

There'll be shame for the one so proud. 
There'll be shame for the one so proud. 
Pride comes before a tumble, 
let her live go on and crumble. 
There'll be shame for the one so proud. 

And you, you where my only hope, 
but could you really care for me. 
I even asked the Holy Ghost. 
Are you the one I love the most, 
are you the one to set me free? 

Oh but selfish will be the one crowned, 
selfish will be the one crowned, 
He will be crowned in poison ivy. 
Let the cries go on by me. 
selfish will be the one crowned. 

And you, you where my only hope, 
but could you really care for me. 
I even asked the Holy Ghost. 
Are you the one I love the most, 
are you the one to set me free?

--Kate Anna Rusby (1973- ), English folk singer-songwriter, from Make the Light, 2010

The Weight of the World

You wanna take it off
It’s the weight of the world
You want to set it free
Just for today
Can’t always be the one
To heal everything
And the weight of the world
Was never yours to keep

You can spend so many days
Trying to make the darkness go away
But it’s the weight of the world
It’s the curse of the worldly ways
Can’t keep it inside
So go on just let it out
It’s the weight of the world
If you ever had a doubt

You wanna take it off
‘Cause it makes your body hurt
It’s the weight of the world
It was never really yours
Can’t keep it inside
Oh, you know you gotta set it free
‘Cause the weight of the world
Was never yours to keep

No, it don't belong to you,
It was never yours to keep,
It's the weight of the world,
And you've gotta set it free

--Kat Goldman, sung by Dar Williams

In honor of the 11 dead and the wounded at the Anti-Semitic  mass murder at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA, on October 27, 2018.

Hope

Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all thing you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.

You cannot enter. But you’re sure it’s there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.

Some people say that we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
There are the ones who have no hope.
They think the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hand of thieves.

-Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), Polish poet and diplomat


Photo: Paper cranes hang in the rear window of St. Augustine's Chapel at Vanderbilt University, 2016.

Love is the essence of life

'And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.' Wonderful as our faith is, it will be of no further value when we stand in the very presence of God. Necessary as hope is in a world where we need every source of courage we can find, it is of no further application in the age to come. But there is no replacement for love. Love is the essence of the life of the age to come. And it is the element in our life here and now that already brings us most certainly into the presence of that new and blessed age.

-- L. William Countryman (1941-  ), Episcopal priest and professor of Biblical Studies, from Calling on the Spirit in Unsettling Times: Anglican Present and Future, 2012, p. 16.

Scriptural reference: 1 Corinthians 13:13

Prayer

Help us to be the always hopeful

gardeners of the spirit

who know that without darkness

nothing comes to birth

as without light

nothing flowers

-- May Sarton (1912-1995), American poet, memoir writer, and novelist

Praise Song for the Day

A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.


-- Elizabeth Alexander (1962- ), written 2009

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

--Maggie Smith, 2016

Hope Is the Thing With Feathers (254)

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

-- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), American poet