Commonwealth Avenue Mall

Sparrow, fierce extortionist!
I have no more crumbs.

2003

To a Trappist

Oh, to be he, with snakes in the jakes!
Cistercian Merton, in his hermitage of icons,
in his dream-den where Proverb sings a secret ageless wisdom,
yes, the monk of hopeful phone-calls to hospitals of love.
Cistercian Merton, left of center, marginal in the rusted trailer,
patron of my fringe existence, pray for me
with your edifying cables, your sensational times,
your blind-lion tears between loblolly pines,
your vanishing trails to the stone Buddhas of unforeseen heaven,
your vow of silent conversation, prosing haiku pictures
of the cloistered farm, of nature's wreckage,
of the ramshackle glory of things as they are,
your coffee on cold mornings, your dexterous calligraphies,
your ephemeral Zen monuments of anguish and joy,
your sinful-saintly standing watch as the world does its work,
your searing psalmody, your soaring liturgies, your telling beads of
      heartbreak,
your sighs to the hills and frosted nightstars
of a distant immortal Kentucky.

2003

call it what you will

1

leaf-life blighted by the smoke
from a passing bus

2

treble tolls of bleak dismay
drab rodomontade

3

the morning of the poem
jazzy drops of rain

4

and the dulcet bumblebees
murmuring their gripes

5

lemon-scented buttercups
lisp their odes to spring

6

canopied boulangeries
rambunctious churches

2003

Surrealism

The ecumenical python lunged at the scrumptious daisy, causing paroxysms of havoc, maniacal fits of glee, in the community of Anglo-Catholic tumbleweeds.

Here endeth the lesson.

16 years ago this week

I was making a retreat at a Trappist monastery. The monks were very kind. A cherished memory.

Poem

I have tried to hold you in my heart; 
You will not accept this grasp and clutch.
(Days turn into years: shall I forget
Her whose face and voice I loved so much?)
Splendid, gentle, proud, defiant one,
Dwell within me like an inner sun:
Warm the places lacking love and light.

Speak to me of peace, O sainted soul:
Mercy must be born again in me.
Come, beloved, teach a prattling fool
Ways of hope and faith and charity.
Smile upon my sorrow; banish fear;
Cleanse me from the sins of yesteryear:
Live within my life and make me whole.


1999

Cummings

if everything happens that can't be done
(and anything's righter
than books
could plan)
the stupidest teacher will almost guess
(with a run
skip
around we go yes)
there's nothing as something as one

one hasn't a why or because or although
(and buds know better
than books
don't grow)
one's anything old being everything new
(with a what
which
around we come who)
one's everyanything so

so world is a leaf so a tree is a bough
(and birds sing sweeter
than books
tell how)
so here is away and so your is a my
(with a down
up
around again fly)
forever was never till now

now i love you and you love me
(and books are shuter
than books
can be)
and deep in the high that does nothing but fall
(with a shout
each
around we go all)
there's somebody calling who's we

we're anything brighter than even the sun
(we're everything greater
than books
might mean)
we're everyanything more than believe
(with a spin
leap
alive we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one

44 tomorrow!

Happy birthday to Tracy Chapman. Here she is as she was 20 years ago ...

Perché là dov'è il tuo tesoro, sarà anche il tuo cuore.

Matteo 6:21

The Christian is the one who has brothers and sisters. He belongs to a family -- the family of the Church.

Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, p. 108

Easter reflections

from John Henry Newman at Apologia, and from Romano Guardini at the Daily Eudemon.

Easter
by Eric Milner-White (1884-1963)

THOU ART RISEN, O LORD!
Let the gospel trumpets speak,
and the news as of holy fire,
burning and flaming and inextinguishable,
run to the ends of the earth.

THOU ART RISEN, O LORD!
Let all creation greet the good tidings
with jubilant shout;
for its redemption has come,
the long night is past, the Saviour lives!
and rides and reigns in triumph
now and unto the ages of ages.

THOU ART RISEN, O LORD!
Let the quiet Altar dazzle with light;
let us haste to thy Presence
wondering, incredulous for joy;
and partake of thy Risen Life.

THOU ART RISEN, MY LORD AND MY GOD!
Rise up, my heart, give thanks, rejoice!
And do thou, O Lord, deign to enter it
despite the shut doors.
Shew me thy hands and thy side,
that it is thou thyself.
Send me about thy business,
servant of the living King, the King of kings;
and hide my life in thine
for ever and ever.

From My God, My Glory : Aspirations, acts, and prayers on the desire for God, ed. Joyce Huggett (Triangle/SPCK, 1994), p. 69.

from Easter Sermon of St John Chrysostom

Let all then enter the joy of our Lord!

Both the first and the last and those who come after, enjoy your reward!

Rich and poor, dance with one another, sober and slothful, celebrate the day.

Those who have kept the fast and those who have not, rejoice today, for the table is richly spread.

Fare royally upon it -- the calf is a fatted one.

Let no one go away hungry.

All of you, enjoy the banquet of faith!

All enjoy the riches of his goodness.

Let no one cry over his poverty, for the universal Kingdom has appeared!

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again, for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us free.

He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He spoiled the power of hell when he descended thereto.

Isaiah foretold this when he cried, Death has been frustrated in meeting him below!

It is frustrated, for it is destroyed.

It is frustrated, for it is annihilated.

It is frustrated, for now it is made captive.

For it grabbed a body and discovered God.

It took earth and behold! it encountered heaven.

It took what was visible, and was overcome by what was invisible.

O Death, where is your sting?

O Death, where is your victory?

Christ is risen,
and the demons are cast down.

Christ is risen,
and life is set free.

Christ is risen,
and the tomb is emptied of the dead.

For Christ, having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who sleep.

To him be glory and power forever and ever!

Amen. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

This is a Night above all nights, when
keeping watch at Your grave
we are the Church.
This is the night of strife
when hope and despair do battle within us.
This strife overlays all our past struggles,
filling them all to their depths.
(Do they lose their sense then, or gain it?)
This is the Night, when the earth's ritual attains its beginning.
A thousand years is like one night:
the night keeping watch
at Your grave.

-- Karol Wojtyla, "Easter Vigil, 1966"

The Agony

by George Herbert (1593-1633); found at Mere Comments.

Attributed to "Michael Angelo"

From the Library of World Poetry, intro. W. C. Bryant (orig. publ. 1871, republished 1987 by Chatham River Press), p. 43.


The might of one fair face sublimes my love,
For it hath weaned my heart from low desires;
Nor death I heed, nor purgatorial fires.
Thy beauty, antepast of joys above,
Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve;
For O, how good, how beautiful must be
The God that made so good a thing as thee,
So fair an image of the heavenly Dove!

Forgive me if I cannot turn away
From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven,
For they are guiding stars, benignly given
To tempt my footsteps to the upward way;
And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,
I live and love in God's peculiar light.

Cummings

there are possibly 2½ or impossibly 3
individuals every several fat
thousand years. Expecting more would be
neither fantastic nor pathological but

dumb. The number of times a wheel turns
doesn't determine its roundness:if swallows tryst
in your barn be glad;nobody ever earns
anything,everthing little looks big in a mist

and if(by Him Whose blood was for us spilled)
than all mankind something more small occurs
or something more distorting than socalled
civilization i'll kiss a stalinist arse

in hitler's window on Wednesday next at 1
E.S.T. bring the kiddies let's all have fun

Cummings

when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having--
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
--it's april(yes,april;my darling)it's spring!
yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound
and wishing is having and having is giving--
but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense
--alive;we're alive,dear:it's(kiss me now)spring!
now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
now the little fish quiver so you and so i
(now the mountains are dancing,the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found
and having is giving and giving is living--
but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
--it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

Cummings

hate blows a bubble of despair into
hugeness world system universe and bang
--fear buries a tomorrow under woe
and up comes yesterday most green and young

pleasure and pain are merely surfaces
(one itself showing,itself hiding one)
life's only and true value neither is
love makes the little thickness of the coin

comes here a man would have from madame death
neverless now and without winter spring?
she'll spin that spirit her own fingers with
and give him nothing(if he should not sing)

how much more than enough for both of us
darling. And if i sing you are my voice,

Bishop Kallistos Ware
from The Orthodox Way (SVS Press, 1995), p. 19

Wherever we look, we see not only confusion but beauty. In snowflake, leaf, or insect, we discover structured patterns of a delicacy and balance that nothing manufactured by human skill can equal. We are not to sentimentalize these things, but we cannot ignore them. How and why have these patterns emerged? If I take a pack of cards fresh from the factory, with the four suits neatly arranged in sequence, and I begin to shuffle it, then the more it is shuffled the more the initial pattern disappears and is replaced by a meaningless juxtaposition. But in the case of the universe the opposite has happened. Out of an initial chaos there have emerged patterns of an ever-increasing intricacy and meaning, and among all these patterns the most intricate and meaningful is man himself. Why should the process that happens to the pack of cards be precisely reversed on the level of the universe? What or who is responsible for this cosmic order and design? Such questions are not unreasonable.

Updated

My other blog, with a sentence from St Gregory of Nyssa.

Pat Buchanan loses his cool



.. while discussing Ferraro's remarks about Obama with Keli Goff (at whom he directed his impatience) and Rachel Maddow.

Not his most glorious moment, but hardly a hanging offense.

Whatever happened to a cup o' joe?

wonders the blogger at June Cleaver After a Six-Pack.

I'm linking to this, because I don't want to scandalize my few remaining readers by posting the obscenity-laden YouTube featuring an eight-minute Denis Leary rant on the exact same subject.

For the record, I have never patronized a Starbucks.

An elastic use of words?

The blogger at The Daily Eudemon wonders if the definition of "pro-life" has become a bit ... undefined.

I'm thinking

that "Client 9" would be a great name for a band.

Of course, this is much graver matter.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.

Scipio blogs "Ars Poetica?" by the late Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz.

Also from Scipio ...

... ein theologischer Limerick in English and German.

There was once a very lovely, very frightened girl. She lived alone except for a nameless cat.

a drop of water

ven a tocar el fuego del azul instantáneo,
ven antes de que sus pétalos se consuman

-- Pablo Neruda, sonnet 24

in the translation of Stephen Tapscott:

come touch the fire of this momentary blue,
before its petals wither

Scenic Boston Common

Mud. Defaced statues. Downed fences. And mud.



The Public Gardens in summer: much, much better.

Via Mere Comments

Hymns for the Sunday of the Last Judgment in the Orthodox Church.

TSO

posts the words to one of my favorite hymns.

O little forests, meekly
Touch the snow with low branches!
O covered stones
Hide the house of growth!

Secret
Vegetal words,
Unlettered water,
Daily zero.

Pray undistracted
Curled tree
Carved in steel! --
Buried zenith!

Fire, turn inward
To your weak fort,
To a burly infant spot,
A house of nothing.

O peace, bless this mad place:
Silence, love this growth.

O silence, golden zero
Unsetting sun

Love winter when the plant says nothing.

-- Thomas Merton

The title of this song



came to mind as I was reading the lamentation linked-to immediately below ...

Sullivan's correspondent

Andrew Sullivan blogs some correspondence from someone who laments the fact that some Catholic bishops are actually, you know, Catholic. It's the end of the world, selon lui.