The Oven Bird

There is a singer everyone has heard, 
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, 
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. 
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers 
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. 
He says the early petal-fall is past 
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers 
On sunny days a moment overcast; 
And comes that other fall we name the fall. 
He says the highway dust is over all. 
The bird would cease and be as other birds 
But that he knows in singing not to sing. 
The question that he frames in all but words 
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

-- Robert Frost (1874-1963), American poet

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

--Robert Frost (1874-1963), American poet

God's World

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
   Thy winds, Thy wide gray skies!
   Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
   But never knew I this,
   Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,-- Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me, -- let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.


--Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), American poet

Ohne Warum (Without Why)

The rose is without why
She blooms because she blooms
She does not care for herself
Asks not if she is seen

--Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) German mystic and poet, convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism, follower of Meister Eckhart, quotes in John O'Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

Someone Who Loves Me

Could I rest here for a while
Near that medal 'round your neck
St. Jude's wearing a smile
He wouldn't mind I bet

I can't go face the world
My bones won't hold me up
So tell the saint of lost souls where to find me
Softly sleepin' here in the deep end of someone who loves me

You'll let me cry it out
'Cause you know that sometimes I can't stop
And still I'm seeking how
To stand up when the bottom drops

The weight of all the world
Can blind me to its beauty
But every time I need to be reminded
I know you will, and say you're still someone who loves me

I try to push it down
But it comes back faster and harder
Tides are changing on a dime
And I'm just trying to keep my head above the water

Surrender's just a word
'Til you try it out
And see how hard it is to hurt
With someone else around

I'm the worst I've ever been
Afraid of almost everything
The skies are clear but storms are always comin'
Your gift to me
Is just to be
Bracing for the winds I always summon
My home, my heart
Thank God you are
Someone who loves me

--Sara Bareilles, from her album Amidst the Chaos (2019)

The Recovery

To see us but receive, is such a sight 
As makes His treasures infinite! 
Because His goodness doth possess 
In us, His own, and our own blessedness. 
Yea, more, His love doth take delight 
To make our glory infinite; 
Our blessedness to see 
Is even to the Deity 
A beatific vision! He attains 
His ends while we enjoy. In us He reigns. 

For God enjoyed is all His end. 
Himself He then doth comprehend 
When He is blessed, magnified, 
Extolled, exalted, praised, and glorified, 
Honored, esteemed, beloved, enjoyed, 
Admired, sanctified, obeyed, 
That is received. For He 
Doth place His whole felicity 
In that : who is despised and defied, 
Undeified almost if once denied. 

In all His works, in all His ways, 
We must His glory see and praise; 
And since our pleasure is the end, 
We must His goodness and His love attend. 
If we despise His glorious works, 
Such sin and mischief in it lurks 
That they are all made in vain; 
And this is even endless pain 
To Him that sees it: whose diviner grief 
Is hereupon (ah me!) without relief. 

We please His goodness that receive; 
Refusers Him of all bereave, 
As bridegrooms know full well that build 
A palace for their bride. It will not yield 
Any delight to him at all 
If she for whom he made the hall 
Refuse to dwell in it, 
Or plainly scorn the benefit. 
Her act that's wooed yields more delight and pleasure 
If she receives, than all the pile of treasure. 

 But we have hands, and lips, and eyes, 
And hearts and souls can sacrifice; 
And souls themselves are made in vain 
If we our evil stubbornness retain. 
Affections, praises, are the things 
For which He gave us all those springs; 
They are the very fruits 
Of all those trees and roots, 
The fruits and ends of all His great endeavours, 
Which he abolisheth whoever severs. 

'Tis not alone a lively sense, 
A clear and quick intelligence, 
A free, profound, and full esteem; 
Though these elixirs all and ends do seem: 
But gratitude, thanksgiving, praise, 
A heart returned for all those joys, 
These are the things admired, 
These are the things by Him desired: 
These are the nectar and the quintessence, 
The cream and flower that most affect His sense. 

The voluntary act whereby 
These are repaid is in His eye 
More precious than the very sky. 
All gold and silver is but empty dross,        * 
Rubies and sapphires are but loss, 
The very sun, and stars, and seas 
Far less His spirit please: 
One voluntary act of love 
Far more delightful to His soul doth prove, 
And is above all these as far as love.

--Thomas Traherne (1636-1694), English priest and poet, whose feast day is September 28.

*- See Matthew 6:19-24

Innocence

But that which most I wonder at, which most 
I did esteem my bliss, which most I boast, 
And ever shall enjoy, is that within 
I felt no stain, nor spot of sin. 

 No darkness then did overshade, 
But all within was pure and bright, 
No guilt did crush, nor fear invade 
But all my soul was full of light. 

A joyful sense and purity 
Is all I can remember; 
The very night to me was bright, 
'Twas summer in December. 

A serious meditation did employ 
My soul within, which taken up with joy 
Did seem no outward thing to note, but fly 
All objects that do feed the eye. 

While it those very objects did 
Admire, and prize, and praise, and love, 
Which in their glory most are hid, 
Which presence only doth remove. 

Their constant daily presence I 
Rejoicing at, did see; 
And that which takes them from the eye 
Of others, offer'd them to me. 

No inward inclination did I feel 
To avarice or pride: my soul did kneel 
In admiration all the day. No lust, nor strife, 
Polluted then my infant life. 

No fraud nor anger in me mov'd, 
No malice, jealousy, or spite; 
All that I saw I truly lov'd. 
Contentment only and delight 

Were in my soul. O Heav'n! what bliss 
Did I enjoy and feel! 
What powerful delight did this 
Inspire! for this I daily kneel. 

Whether it be that nature is so pure, 
And custom only vicious; or that sure 
God did by miracle the guilt remove, 
And make my soul to feel his love 

So early: or that 'twas one day, 
Wherein this happiness I found; 
Whose strength and brightness so do ray, 
That still it seems me to surround; 

What ere it is, it is a light 
So endless unto me 
That I a world of true delight 
Did then and to this day do see. 

That prospect was the gate of Heav'n, that day 
The ancient light of Eden did convey 
Into my soul: I was an Adam there 
A little Adam in a sphere 

Of joys! O there my ravish'd sense 
Was entertain'd in Paradise, 
And had a sight of innocence
Which was beyond all bound and price. 

An antepast of Heaven sure! 
I on the earth did reign; 
Within, without me, all was pure; 
I must become a child again.

--Thomas Traherne (1636-1674), English priest and poet, whose feast day is today.

Elegy for the Giant Tortoises

Let others pray for the passenger pigeon
the dodo, the whooping crane, the eskimo:
everybody must specialize

I will confine myself to a meditation
upon the giant tortoises
withering finally on a remote island.

I concentrate in subway stations,
in parks, I can't quite see them,
they move to the peripheries of my eyes

but on the last day they will be there:
already the event
like a wave traveling shapes vision:

on the road where I stand they will materialize,
plodding past me in a straggling line
awkward without water

their small heads pondering
from side to side, their useless armour
sadder than tanks and history,

in their closed gaze ocean and sunlight paralyzed,
lumbering up the steps, under the archways
toward the square glass altars

where the brittle gods are kept,
the relics of what we have destroyed,
our holy and obsolete symbols.

-- Margaret Atwood (1939- ), Canadian author, essayist, critic, inventor, teacher, environmental activist, and poet

To a Snail

Oh, you little home-on-your-back!
Weren't you afraid that my huge foot
Would sweep you away?

Last night, under the rain,
You slid into my sneaker
For shelter.

Today,
You return to your green birthplace
Leaving me covetous, longing for mine.

--Majid Naficy (1952- ) Persian poet, teacher, activist, and exile, translated by Nilofar Talebi

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands; 
Close to the sun in lonely lands, 
Ringed with the azure world, he stands. 

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; 
He watches from his mountain walls, 
 And like a thunderbolt he falls.

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) British poet, poet laureate of Great Britain during Queen Victoria's reign



Photo of a Golden Eagle in its habitat from the San Diego Zoo.