Oh, holy mackerel

I really should be more awake when I blog.  I accidentally posted something here a while ago, something that wasn't intended for public consumption!  Big time oopsie.


More coffee.  That is the remedy.


And who knows -- maybe I'll abridge and revise some of my private obiter dicta, and make them fit for public consumption.  Or something like that.


More coffee.  Now.


Until soon, mesdames et messieurs!

Cana

To the wedding, Christ, the human, the divine,
Came with his friends, who drank a lot of wine.


The guests at the feast succeeded in draining
Each jar, each clay-cold tank, quite dry.  The wine


Disappeared, imbibed by thirsty carousers
Who you would think had never tasted wine!


Mary of Nazareth, mother of Christ, was there,
Spoke to her son frank words: "They have no wine."


"Woman, what's this to me and thee?  My hour
Has not yet come."  Those gallons of wine,


Would she have him replace them?  If so, how?
Costly to purchase, and hard to make, grape wine.


"Do whatever he tells you," Mary said
To the certainly-bewildered stewards of wine.


The lowly, lordly Christ summoned those servants
Who had been helping to dispense the wine.


"Bring me the jars of water."  And they did.
But water, though refreshing, is not wine.


Was it a touch, a blessing, or a breath
That changed what came from a well into fine wine?


Sister water, the modest maiden, blushed:
And soon the water-jars were filled with wine.


The guests of the happy couple marvelled, danced
With newfound joy.  Where did he find this wine?


They thanked their God, they thanked his unknown Christ.
"At this late hour, we have the choicest wine."

Light

Bob of Trousered Ape has produced a very fine, a very serious, a very elegant ghazal.  This reader, for one, is abashed by the adroit expertise and poignant grace of this most moving poem.

Baptism

(a meditation on the First Luminous Mystery, in the manner of Caryll Houselander)


Lord Jesus Christ,
    you sanctified the waters
    of the Jordan
by entering into them
    to receive the baptism
    of John.


You plunged yourself
    into our humanity,
    taking the form of a slave.


You consented to be numbered
    among the sinners
that we might be numbered
    among the saints.


And still your Father's voice
    echoes from the heavens:
"This is my beloved Son;
    listen to Him."

Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012)

Death?  It comes in your sleep,
exactly as it should.


When it comes, you'll be dreaming
that you don't need to breathe;
that breathless silence is
the music of the dark
and it's part of the rhythm
to vanish like a spark.


Only a death like that.  A rose
could prick you harder, I suppose;
you'd feel more terror at the sound
of petals falling to the ground.


Only a world like that.  To die
just that much.  And to live just so.
And all the rest is Bach's fugue, played
for the time being
on a saw.


*


W. Szymborska, from "I'm Working on the World," in Poems New and Collected 1957-1997, trans. Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh (Harcourt, 1998), p. 4

The Will of God

by Jessica Powers (1905-88)




Time has one song alone.  If you are heedful
and concentrate on sound with all your soul,
you may hear the song of the beautiful will of God,
soft notes or deep sonorous tones that roll
like thunder over time.
Not many have the hearing for this music,
and fewer still have sought it as sublime.


Listen, and tell your grief:  But God is singing!
God sings through all creation with His will.
Save the negation of sin, all is His music,
even the notes that set their roots in ill
to flower in pity, pardon or sweet humbling.
Evil finds harshness of the rack and rod
in tunes where good finds tenderness and glory.


The saints who loved have died of this pure music,
and no one enters heaven till he learns,
deep in his soul at least, to sing with God.




(1951)


*


Jessica Powers, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, eds. Regina Siegfried and Robert Morneau (Sheed & Ward, 1989), p.19