Monday, January 19, 2009
An anniversary
Twenty-five years ago, my grandmother went to her rest in the hope of rising again; please join me in praying for the happy repose of her soul.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
improvisational sequence
1
Sun over snowfield
feeble blot of whitish ink
leaking through gray cloud
2
Cantankerous crow
complains of the cold
with a colder cry
3
Wine gladdens the heart
bread strengthens the sinews and
oil makes the face shine
4
Woman with eyes like
stars in the midnight sky
where have you gone
5
Trudge through snow
toward the Sunday sacrifice
beatific day
6
Slumdog Millionaire
and the other much-praised films
don't think I'll see them
7
O tremendous dream
of ecstatic atonement
you've disturbed my peace
8
Noise of fretful mind
much concerned with that and this
will you never cease
9
Miss Marianne Moore
sapient Presbyterian
Brooklyn Confucius
10
when my life is spent
how stern will Your mercy be
how sweet Your justice
Sun over snowfield
feeble blot of whitish ink
leaking through gray cloud
2
Cantankerous crow
complains of the cold
with a colder cry
3
Wine gladdens the heart
bread strengthens the sinews and
oil makes the face shine
4
Woman with eyes like
stars in the midnight sky
where have you gone
5
Trudge through snow
toward the Sunday sacrifice
beatific day
6
Slumdog Millionaire
and the other much-praised films
don't think I'll see them
7
O tremendous dream
of ecstatic atonement
you've disturbed my peace
8
Noise of fretful mind
much concerned with that and this
will you never cease
9
Miss Marianne Moore
sapient Presbyterian
Brooklyn Confucius
10
when my life is spent
how stern will Your mercy be
how sweet Your justice
Friday, January 16, 2009
This weekend's Marianne Moore
With regard to emphasis in Biblical speech, there is a curious unalterableness about the statement by the Apostle James: The flower "falleth and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth." Substitute, "the grace of its fashion perisheth," and overconscious correctness is weaker than the actual version, in which eloquence escapes grandiloquence by virtue of gusto.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 425
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 425
Somerset Maugham
If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.
(via Google's Quotes of the Day)
(via Google's Quotes of the Day)
"Personal relationship"
Eve Tushnet reflects on the phrase "personal relationship with God" in this essay for Inside Catholic. With references to one of the penitential psalms.
The comments contain an anecdote about Fr Rutler's response to the question "Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?" -- a response which I may have to steal and use as my own!
The comments contain an anecdote about Fr Rutler's response to the question "Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?" -- a response which I may have to steal and use as my own!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
W. D. Snodgrass (1926-2009)
The Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet has died. Here is his "April Inventory."
Books
Books can speak to us like God, like men or like the noise of the city we live in. They speak to us like God when they bring us light and peace and fill us with silence. They speak to us like God when we desire never to leave them. They speak to us like men when we desire to hear them again. They speak to us like the noise of the city when they hold us captive by a weariness that tells us nothing, give us no peace, and no support, nothing to remember, and yet will not let us escape.
Books that speak like God speak with too much authority to entertain us. Those that speak like good men hold us by their human charm; we grow by finding ourselves in them. They teach us to know ourselves better by recognizing ourselves in another.
Books that speak like the noise of multitudes reduce us to despair by the sheer weight of their emptiness. They entertain us like the lights of the city streets at night, by hopes they cannot fulfil.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, Part One, chapter XIV (Image Books, 1968, pp. 61-62)
:: :: :: :: ::
When Merton writes of books that speak with the noise of the city's multitudes, noise that is ultimately empty, I think he may have anticipated the poetry of John Ashbery, whose clever orchestrations of language do not point to anything higher than the words themselves.
Books that speak like God speak with too much authority to entertain us. Those that speak like good men hold us by their human charm; we grow by finding ourselves in them. They teach us to know ourselves better by recognizing ourselves in another.
Books that speak like the noise of multitudes reduce us to despair by the sheer weight of their emptiness. They entertain us like the lights of the city streets at night, by hopes they cannot fulfil.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, Part One, chapter XIV (Image Books, 1968, pp. 61-62)
:: :: :: :: ::
When Merton writes of books that speak with the noise of the city's multitudes, noise that is ultimately empty, I think he may have anticipated the poetry of John Ashbery, whose clever orchestrations of language do not point to anything higher than the words themselves.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
This weekend's Marianne Moore
Nor can we dignify confusion by calling it baroque.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 420
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 420
Bob Dylan in the background
"You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat."
I like the line ... but what the heck does it mean???
I like the line ... but what the heck does it mean???
Friday, January 09, 2009
Coffee
by J. V. Cunningham (1911-86)
When I awoke with cold
And looked for you, my dear,
And the dusk inward rolled,
Not light or dark, but drear,
Unabsolute, unshaped,
That no glass can oppose,
I fled not to escape
Myself, but to transpose.
I have so often fled
Wherever I could drink
Dark coffee and there read
More than a man would think
That I say I waste time
For contemplation's sake:
In an uncumbered clime
Minute inductions wake,
Insight flows in my pen.
I know no fear nor haste.
Time is my own again.
I waste it for the waste.
When I awoke with cold
And looked for you, my dear,
And the dusk inward rolled,
Not light or dark, but drear,
Unabsolute, unshaped,
That no glass can oppose,
I fled not to escape
Myself, but to transpose.
I have so often fled
Wherever I could drink
Dark coffee and there read
More than a man would think
That I say I waste time
For contemplation's sake:
In an uncumbered clime
Minute inductions wake,
Insight flows in my pen.
I know no fear nor haste.
Time is my own again.
I waste it for the waste.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
I'm posting these a little late for the Epiphany
... but here are two poems, sent by a faithful reader of this blog, Maria H., to whom we offer sincerest thanks!
THAT NIGHT THEY ALL GATHERED ON THE HIGHEST TOWER
That night they all gathered on the highest tower:
Astronomers, mathematicians, and one of the magi from Syria
To read in the stars the glory of the King of Kings,
And demonstrate his immortality with the aid of geometry.
Just before dawn, they nodded their heads in accord
With one another's interpretations. The answer of the stars
Was positive. The trumpets announced
The glory of the King of Kings to the rising sun.
In the palace, at the table set for the feast, they were awaited
By the one to whom the stars gave their word tonight,
And whose future now overflowed like new wine
Which in the golden chalices awaited the toasts.
Only some youth who had recently mastered geometry,
Was not fully convinced by what was read in the stars,
For the stars always give their answer to mortals
But to what question, only they themselves know.
~ Jovan Hristić (1933-2002), Serbian poet,
translated by Charles Simic, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2007
*
THE FOURTH WISE MAN
The fourth wise man
disliked travel. If
you walk, there's the
gravel. If you ride,
there's the camel's attitude.
He far preferred
to be inside in solitude
to contemplate the star
that had been getting
so much larger
and more prolate lately --
stretching vertically
(like the souls of martyrs)
toward the poles
(or like the yawns of babies).
~ Kay Ryan, b. 1945, current Poet Laureate of the United States
THAT NIGHT THEY ALL GATHERED ON THE HIGHEST TOWER
That night they all gathered on the highest tower:
Astronomers, mathematicians, and one of the magi from Syria
To read in the stars the glory of the King of Kings,
And demonstrate his immortality with the aid of geometry.
Just before dawn, they nodded their heads in accord
With one another's interpretations. The answer of the stars
Was positive. The trumpets announced
The glory of the King of Kings to the rising sun.
In the palace, at the table set for the feast, they were awaited
By the one to whom the stars gave their word tonight,
And whose future now overflowed like new wine
Which in the golden chalices awaited the toasts.
Only some youth who had recently mastered geometry,
Was not fully convinced by what was read in the stars,
For the stars always give their answer to mortals
But to what question, only they themselves know.
~ Jovan Hristić (1933-2002), Serbian poet,
translated by Charles Simic, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2007
*
THE FOURTH WISE MAN
The fourth wise man
disliked travel. If
you walk, there's the
gravel. If you ride,
there's the camel's attitude.
He far preferred
to be inside in solitude
to contemplate the star
that had been getting
so much larger
and more prolate lately --
stretching vertically
(like the souls of martyrs)
toward the poles
(or like the yawns of babies).
~ Kay Ryan, b. 1945, current Poet Laureate of the United States
via TSO, a meme!
"which involves posting the first line from your first post of every month."
December: Monday of the first week of Advent.
November: All Saints' Day.
October: Hayden Carruth, poet, anthologist, sometime editor of Poetry magazine, author of from snow and rock, from chaos (1973) and Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey (1990s), editor of the important anthology The Voice that is Great Within Us (1970), has died at age 87.
September: Via the Mere Comments blog Bishop Sheen on "What's My Line" :
August: I was walking, one afternoon in August, along a riverbank, thinking the same thoughts that I always think when I walk along a riverbank in August.
July: As of yesterday I have surpassed Dylan Thomas (d. aetat. 39 yrs., 13 days) in the longevity department.
June: To John Keats, Poet, At Spring Time by Countee Cullen (1903-46) (For Carl Van Vechten) I cannot hold my peace, John Keats; There never was a spring like this; It is an echo, that repeats My last year's song and next year's bliss.
May: The May Magnificat by Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ (1844-89) May is Mary's month, and I Muse at that and wonder why: Her feasts follow reason, Dated due to season— Candlemas, Lady Day; But the Lady Month, May, Why fasten that upon her, With a feasting in her honour?
April: a conjecture : seeking ghostly intercession Oh, to be he, with snakes in the jakes!
March: Andrew Sullivan blogs some correspondence from someone who laments the fact that some Catholic bishops are actually, you know, Catholic.
February: Sister Wendy on Prayer page 71 Even for Catholics, the Eucharist is something mysterious.
January: New Beginning We're overdue for a Tracy Chapman video.
December: Monday of the first week of Advent.
November: All Saints' Day.
October: Hayden Carruth, poet, anthologist, sometime editor of Poetry magazine, author of from snow and rock, from chaos (1973) and Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey (1990s), editor of the important anthology The Voice that is Great Within Us (1970), has died at age 87.
September: Via the Mere Comments blog Bishop Sheen on "What's My Line" :
August: I was walking, one afternoon in August, along a riverbank, thinking the same thoughts that I always think when I walk along a riverbank in August.
July: As of yesterday I have surpassed Dylan Thomas (d. aetat. 39 yrs., 13 days) in the longevity department.
June: To John Keats, Poet, At Spring Time by Countee Cullen (1903-46) (For Carl Van Vechten) I cannot hold my peace, John Keats; There never was a spring like this; It is an echo, that repeats My last year's song and next year's bliss.
May: The May Magnificat by Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ (1844-89) May is Mary's month, and I Muse at that and wonder why: Her feasts follow reason, Dated due to season— Candlemas, Lady Day; But the Lady Month, May, Why fasten that upon her, With a feasting in her honour?
April: a conjecture : seeking ghostly intercession Oh, to be he, with snakes in the jakes!
March: Andrew Sullivan blogs some correspondence from someone who laments the fact that some Catholic bishops are actually, you know, Catholic.
February: Sister Wendy on Prayer page 71 Even for Catholics, the Eucharist is something mysterious.
January: New Beginning We're overdue for a Tracy Chapman video.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
January 1, 2009
Octave of Christmas; Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.
I may stop posting these liturgical calendar updates, except for major feasts; I think those of you who wish to, can find your way to catholicculture.org to get all the info.
Happy New Year! So far, so good ...
I may stop posting these liturgical calendar updates, except for major feasts; I think those of you who wish to, can find your way to catholicculture.org to get all the info.
Happy New Year! So far, so good ...
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
December 31, 2008
Optional memorial of St Sylvester I, pope. Seventh day in the Octave of Christmas.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Year's End
by Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.
I've known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.
There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii
The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.
These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.
Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.
I've known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.
There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii
The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.
These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.
another thought from Merton
That which is oldest is most young and most new. There is nothing so ancient and so dead as human novelty. The "latest" is always stillborn. It never even manages to arrive. What is really new is what was there all the time.
Thomas Merton, from "Sentences," chapter 15 of New Seeds of Contemplation (New Directions Paperbook 1091), p. 107
Thomas Merton, from "Sentences," chapter 15 of New Seeds of Contemplation (New Directions Paperbook 1091), p. 107
This week's Marianne Moore
Obscenity as a protest is better than obscenity as praise, but there is -- between the mechanics of power in a spark of feeling and the mechanics of power in a speck of obscenity -- an ocean of difference, and it does not seem sagacious for either to mistake itself for the other.
Excerpt from Marianne Moore's review of One Times One by E E Cummings; in The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 395
Excerpt from Marianne Moore's review of One Times One by E E Cummings; in The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 395
Great paragraph!
If we know how great is the love of Jesus for us we will never be afraid to go to Him in all our poverty, all our weakness, all our spiritual wretchedness and infirmity. Indeed, when we understand the true nature of His love for us, we will prefer to come to Him poor and helpless. We will never be ashamed of our distress. Distress is to our advantage whe we have nothing to seek but mercy. We can be glad of our helplessness when we really believe that His power is made perfect in our infirmity.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, part one, chapter VI
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, part one, chapter VI
Monday, December 29, 2008
December 29, 2008
Fifth day in the Octave of Christmas: optional memorial of St Thomas Becket, bishop and martyr, who was famously murdered in the cathedral at Canterbury.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Volvox!
Just in case any fans of flagellated unicellular green algae are visiting this cyber-bailiwick ...
Friday, December 26, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
And from the archives ...
Three Christmas prayers from the eminent 20th-century Anglican Dr Eric Milner-White.
The Nativity of Christ
Thy Nativity, O Christ our God, hath revealed to the world the Light of wisdom : for in it those who worshipped the stars were taught by a star to adore thee, the Sun of Righteousness, and to know thee, the Dayspring from on high. Glory be to thee, O Lord.
The Virgin to-day giveth birth to him who is above all creation; and the earth offereth the cave to him whom none can approach unto. Angels and shepherds sing glory, and wise men journey with a star, since for our sake hath come as a new-born Child he who from all eternity is God.
from A Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers (SVS Press, 1999), p. 32
The Virgin to-day giveth birth to him who is above all creation; and the earth offereth the cave to him whom none can approach unto. Angels and shepherds sing glory, and wise men journey with a star, since for our sake hath come as a new-born Child he who from all eternity is God.
from A Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers (SVS Press, 1999), p. 32
Christmas at dawn, Sarum rite
Almighty God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine Incarnate Word; grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
from The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton, prayer no. 617
from The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton, prayer no. 617
December 25, 2008
Solemnity of Christmas.
And let me take this opportunity to wish all visitors to dark speech upon the harp a very happy, healthy Christmas filled with blessings ...
And let me take this opportunity to wish all visitors to dark speech upon the harp a very happy, healthy Christmas filled with blessings ...
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Christmas midnight
O God who hast made this most hallowed night resplendent with the glory of the true Light; grant that we who have known the mysteries of that Light on earth, may enter into the fullness of his joys in heaven.
from The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton, prayer no. 615
from The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton, prayer no. 615
A prayer from the eastern church (2)
Christ is born, give glory. Christ comes from heaven, meet him. Christ is on earth, be exalted. O all the earth, sing unto the Lord, and sing praises in gladness, O all you people, for he has been glorified.
Wisdom and Word and Power, Christ our God is the Son and the Brightness of the Father; and unknown to the powers both above and upon the earth, he was made man, and so had won us back again: for he has been glorified.
from The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton, prayer no. 614
Wisdom and Word and Power, Christ our God is the Son and the Brightness of the Father; and unknown to the powers both above and upon the earth, he was made man, and so had won us back again: for he has been glorified.
from The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton, prayer no. 614
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
This week's Marianne Moore
[...] the devouring gorgon romantic love, toward which, as toward wine, unfaith is renewal
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 367
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 367
A prayer of the eastern church
What shall we offer thee, O Christ,
Who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man?
Every creature made by thee offers thee thanks.
The angels offer thee a hymn;
The heavens a star;
The magi, gifts;
The shepherds, their wonder;
The earth, its cave;
The wilderness, the manger:
And we offer thee a Virgin Mother.
O God from everlasting, have mercy upon us.
From The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton, prayer no. 612
Who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man?
Every creature made by thee offers thee thanks.
The angels offer thee a hymn;
The heavens a star;
The magi, gifts;
The shepherds, their wonder;
The earth, its cave;
The wilderness, the manger:
And we offer thee a Virgin Mother.
O God from everlasting, have mercy upon us.
From The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton, prayer no. 612
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
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