On the Maine Islands

No one will see

The light-stepping deer

When they come out from the alders

To look for windfalls

In the abandoned orchard.

No one will see the daylilies

The color of red foxes,

Waist-high coarse-textured lilies

That spring from the tumbled stones

Where there was once a farmhouse

And crowd around the cellar-hole

Now thick with raspberry-canes

Where hornets forage.

Mink live here, and voles,

There are seals on the offshore ledges

And herons with their harsh cries

Are nesting up in the woods,

But the man who was down by the shore

Scraping the hull of a boat

The woman feeding her hens

The child playing with fir-cones

Have been gone for a hundred years

And in the still harbor

There is no skiff but ours.

*          *          *

These granite and limestone islands,

These tops of flooded mountains

Are scattered all over the bay

Their clearings shining with wildflowers,

The live coals of hawkweed,

The daisies’ fiery white,

And finespun birdsongs shiver

Over their scraps of forest.

They’re moated with ice-cold channels

Deep enough for a whale,

Where once or twice a summer

With a slow throb of engines

The Swedish freighters go by.

When the sun comes out

The sky speaks blue

And the whole bay

Down to its least cove

Takes on a dazzle of blue,

Becomes a field of splendor.

*          *          *

High up over the harbor

Of the fishing village

On another island

Is St. Mary Star of the Sea,

Built by Italian stonecutters

Who came to work in the quarries

It’s a white frame building

The size of a one-room schoolhouse,

With six milky windows

And a low spire.

Below are the steep-pitched streets

And the fishermen’s wooden houses

With their stacks of lobster pots

Their granite garden walls

And their small gardens flaming

In the short northern summer.

Through St. Mary’s windows

Half open in the summer

We can see the harbor,

The water bluer than larkspur,

The sloping folds of granite.

An old Italian woman

Who gets to Mass early

Has come with dahlias and roses

And the stonecutters’ grandchildren

Carefully chant the Gloria

In their transparent voices

For the one who carved the islands

Has come to live among us,

And this is the house he has chosen,

St. Mary’s Star of the Sea.

--Anne Porter (1911-2011) from Living Things: Collected Poems (2006)

For the Indifferent

Crucifixion facade at the Basilica of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona.

We pray thee for those who
amid all the knowledge of our day
are still without knowledge;
for those who hear not the sighs of the children that toil,
nor the sobs of such as are wounded
because others have made haste to be rich;
for those who have never felt
the hot tears of the mothers of the poor
that struggle vainly against poverty and vice.
Arouse them, we beseech thee,
from their selfish comfort,
and grant them the grace of social repentance.
Smite us all with the conviction
that for us ignorance is sin,
and that we are indeed our brothers' keepers
if our own hand has helped to lay him low.
Though increase of knowledge bring increase of sorrow,
may we turn without flinching to the light
and offer ourselves as instruments of thy spirit
in bringing order and beauty
out of disorder and darkness.

--Walter Rauschenbusch, from Prayers of the Social Awakening, 1909

Prayer of Confession

O God, who has given us light, and who grieves because we have so often loved darkness better; you have called us to follow that which is good, and to flee from that which is evil; and you know how, hour after hour, day after day, we have yielded to temptations in our path, have done that which you have forbidden, and have left undone the work you have given us to do. O You, whose voice of warning and love we have so little heeded, call us yet again, we beseech You; call us that we may answer and do your bidding, that we may go astray from You no more; but that, being comforted by your love, and upheld by your strength, we may fulfill our days upon earth forgiven and at peace with You.

-- adapted to modern language from R.C. Jones, A Book of Prayers (19th century)

A Short Testament

Whatever harm I may have done
In all my life in all your wide creation
If I cannot repair it
I beg you to repair it,

And then there are all the wounded
The poor the deaf the lonely and the old
Whom I have roughly dismissed
As if I were not one of them.
Where I have wronged them by it
And cannot make amends I ask you
To comfort them to overflowing,

And where there are lives I may have withered around me,
Or lives of strangers far or near
That I’ve destroyed in blind complicity,
And if I cannot find them
Or have no way to serve them,

Remember them. I beg you to remember them

When winter is over
And all your unimaginable promises
Burst into song on death’s bare branches.

--Anne Porter (1911-2011), from Living Things (2006)

The Gift

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.

--Mary Oliver (1935-), from Felicity (2015)

Logos

Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love,
the fish explode into many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don't worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
spoken with love.

-- Mary Oliver (1935-), from Why I Wake Early: New Poems (2004)

St. Patrick's Breastplate, or The Deer's Cry-- A Lorica (Prayer) of St. Patrick

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity
Through belief in the Threeness
Through confession of the Oneness
Towards the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension
Through the strength of his descent for the Judgement of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim
In obedience to the Angels,
In the service of the Archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of Holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun
Brilliance of moon
Splendor of fire
Speed of lightning
Swiftness of wind
Depth of sea
Stability of earth
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s host to secure me
against snares of devils
against temptations of vices
against inclinations of nature
against everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and anear,
alone and in a crowd.

I summon today all these powers between me and these evils
Against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and my soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of heathenry,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that endangers man’s body and soul.

Christ to protect me today
against poison, against burning,
against drowning, against wounding,
so that there may come abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Thrones,
Through confession of the Oneness
Towards the Creator of creation.

Salvation is of the Lord
Salvation is of the Lord
Salvation is of Christ
May thy salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

Be a Gardener- Dame Julian of Norwich

Be a Gardener.
Dig a ditch. Toil and sweat.
And turn the earth upside down.
And seek the deepness.
And water plants in time.
Continue this labor.
And make sweet floods to run,
and noble and abundant fruits to spring.
Take this food and drink,
and carry it to God as your true worship.

--Julian of Norwich, whose feast day is today, ca. 1430

A Call to Awareness

The earth is at the same time mother.
She is mother of all that is natural,
     mother of all that is human.
She is the mother of all,
     for contained in her are the seeds of all.
The earth of humankind
     contains all moistness, all verdancy,
     all germinating power.
It is in so many ways fruitful.
All creation comes from it. Yet it forms
     not only the basic raw material for humankind,
     but also the substance for the incarnation of God's son.

--Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)

Daffodils

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
    That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
    A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
    And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
    Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
    Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
    In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
    In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
    Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

--William Wordsworth (1770-1850)