Here and Now

It was a beautiful Victoria Day long weekend, with ample time for reflection and soaking up the sunlight. Also, I found this: 


Vestigia

I took a day to search for God,
And found Him not. But as I trod
By rocky ledge, through woods untamed,
Just where one scarlet lily flamed,
I saw his footprint in the sod.

Then suddenly, all unaware,
Far off in the deep shadows, where
A solitary hermit thrush
Sang through the holy twilight hush-
I heard His voice upon the air.

And even as I marvelled how
God gives us Heaven here and now,
In a stir of wind that hardly shook
The poplar leaves beside the brook-
His hand was light upon my brow.

At last with evening as I turned
Homeward, and thought what I had learned
And all that there was still to probe-
I caught the glory of his robe
Where the last fires of sunset burned.

Back to the world with quickening start
I looked and longed for any part
In making saving Beauty be...
And from that kindling ecstasy
I knew God dwelt within my heart.

(Bliss Carman)

Flif Flif Flif Very Fast

Song to Alfred Hitchcock and Wilkinson

flif flif flif very fast
is the noise the birds make
running over us.
A poet would say "fluttering"
or
"see-sawing with sun on their wings"
but all it is
is flif flif flif very fast.


Michael Ondaatje
(The Dainty Monster)

Hopper

Hopper

[to Kristen] 

What is adulthood?

It is many things, but not

knee scrapes, shoe strings,

not paper crown kings,

not stone flinging shot-slings.

And slippery! Hands are troubled to cling 

to objects enduring,

(save, maybe to worrying

for what sunrise could bring.) 

Moreover, it gives so many once-held things

wings,

In pairs!

And dares it to pare 

bonded things

together once weld' 

in rings. 

Others, still, it weds.

No matter how foe-like,

it beds 

them,

No matter how it stings.

[It is when the having of an ordinary joy

becomes a skill,

even an art of the mind]

Joy?

My present joy,

Like a winged grasshopper 

in a July day field.

Hopper,

To you the tall grasses are grossly tall.

I see you leap, span wings, and fall

haphazardly to ground below.

Everything is large to you and up and close.

When the wind blows, it blows;

the sun almost too greatly shines;

the dew drop really glows.

Hopper!

The black bird can snatch you up in a blink!

How fast the link

to life is cut.

Your little life is spent looking, is it not? 

You have a season

to befriend the trees once,

maybe for a mate to hunt

a victory to flaunt,

defy an ought,

But you’ve not 

the reason.

For you, to live is to see- to search

to keep the mouth full- to chirp

into the wind.

I watch from afar,

aware of all the out-about dangers that befall

your kind.

I can not help.

Come I near

your wings’ll span with fear

and you’ll flutter away.

I’ll have to turn my back

til you come back.

(I hope you do.)

You will.

jordan dejonge

Holy Wound

O tenderly worded palm inscribed;

the hand that bleeds is the hand that guides;

crushed, the finger pointing to hallowed skies;

from none, 

from one, 

from her, from all derived           tenderly;

O wounded palm, I'll touch Thy blood to doubt.

skin tethered, en-skinned text;

the word spoken speaks, blesses, is blest;

presses palm to heart, prays, is prayed, is pressed;

laments, is lamented, suffers, comes to rest.

from above

comes,

from blood,

for blood;

from flesh 

to flesh to give;

Life taking up life, 

to die to live.

came,

to wound the Wound 

to mend It;

forsaken of grace 

to send it;

deprived of aid 

to lend it;

succumbed to sorrow

to fend it

at last away and forever. 

O tenderly worded palm inscribed

by Adam's deed,

by Eve's vale-low cries;

Thou,

from love, for love

from the Father,

with the Dove,

Take my palm in thine 

and glove 

it with thine own.

jordan dejonge

The Steadfast Changeless Shore

"But I'll not fear. I will not weep

For those whose bodies rest in sleep,-

I know there is a blessed shore,

Opening its ports for me and mine

And, gazing Time's wide waters o'ver,

I weary for that land divine,

Where we were born, where you and I

Shall meet our dearest, when we die

From suffering and corruption free,

Restored into the Deity."

"Well hast thou spoken, sweet, trustful child!

And wiser than thy sire:

And worldly tempests, raging wild,

Shall strengthen thy desire-

Thy fervent hope, through storm and foam.

Through wind and ocean's roar,

To reach, at last, the eternal home,

The steadfast changeless shore!" 

(from "Faith and Despondency", Charlotte Bronte) 

The Poet is...

 “The poet is, must be, for the moment at least, a man so intensely aware of some Thing in his universe- Frost’s tuft of flowers deliberately spared by the mower- that he is driven to inventing an arrangement of words that makes others aware this Thing may exist in their universe too.” [Earle Birney] 

Readers, what is your favourite poem? What does it make you aware of?

Shovelling Snow

Twilight has set out,

Laying frigidity from the east;

Over the pine tops;

Soldiered, looming trees,

Forever emerald. Though

Night wraps up colour

In halved secrets-

All but white,

White.

See, the wind too exhales in white.

And breathes it on the windows,

Down buttoned, winter coats;

Carried,

Scattered,

Like the seed of eldered dandelion. 

It kisses the face

That warms it to a sting,

Planting no life.

Here silence and the cold are a single thing.

I yield a praying, whitened sigh

While through the air they constrict the chest.

The valley, hallowed out of sound

In quiet, wintered death

Seems permanent below with a graveyard peace

While the things of summer have their rest. 

jordan dejonge