Friday, August 31, 2012

Paradise with the Donkeys


Richard Wilbur, a great poet in his own right, also has a reputation as an exceptional translator of non-English poetry. What follows is one I enjoy, originally written by French poet Francis Jammes (1868-1938). I cannot read French, so I don’t know if Wilbur improved on the original or not. Either way, this version is very fine.

 (The photograph is of Jammes, n.d.)








A Prayer to Go to Paradise with the Donkeys
            to Máire and Jack

When I must come to you, O my God, I pray
It be some dusty-roaded holiday,
And even as in my travels here below,
I beg to choose by what road I shall go
To Paradise, where the clear stars shine by day.
I’ll take my walking-stick and go my way,
And to my friends the donkeys I shall say,
“I am Francis Jammes, and I’m going to Paradise,
For there is no hell in the land of the loving God.”
And I’ll say to them: “Come, sweet friends of the blue skies,
Poor creatures who with a flap of the ears or a nod
Of the head shake off the buffets, the bees, the flies . . .”

Let me come with these donkeys, Lord, into your land,
These beasts who bow their heads so gently, and stand
With their small feet joined together in a fashion
Utterly gentle, asking your compassion.
I shall arrive, followed by their thousands of ears,
Followed by those with baskets at their flanks,
By those who lug the carts of mountebanks
Or loads of feather-dusters and kitchen-wares,
By those with humps of battered water-cans,
By bottle-shaped she-asses who halt and stumble,
By those tricked out in little pantaloons
To cover their wet, blue galls where flies assemble
In whirling swarms, making a drunken hum.
Dear God, let it be with these donkeys that I come,
And let it be that angels lead us in peace
To leafy streams where cherries tremble in air,
Sleek as the laughing flesh of girls; and there
In that haven of souls let it be that, leaning above
Your divine waters, I shall resemble these donkeys,
Whose humble and sweet poverty will appear
Clear in the clearness of your eternal love.

Ignoring the Person



When the truth of the person is underrated or ignored in the realm of theology, this inevitably leads to the creation of a legal, external ethic. Man's ethos or morality ceases to relate to the truth of the person, to the dynamic event of true life and its existential realization. His moral problem is no longer an existential one, a problem of salvation from natural necessity; it is a pseudo-problem of objective obligations which remain existentially unjustifiable. Then repentance too is distorted by elements alien to it . . . 
--Christos Yannaras, from The Freedom of Morality

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Enough


Three Word Wednesday, prompt words affair, expectation, free. Mixed feelings about this one.

Enough

I heard my share
of sermons, serving
time on straight-backed
pews, begrudging each
moment lost
                  to eternity.
My elders sat willingly
in expectation
of heavenly reward, glad
to leave all worldly affairs,
glad to rest weary
bones if only for
a moment.

They meant well.

I see that now, now
that my own bones
need rest, now that
I hope beyond all hope
to be free 
in the divine.

But we will never
decipher the mystery, try
as we might. Will we?

All we have from him
we already know,
written bold. Do
not kill, do
not steal, do
unto others.

We stumble over what
we do not have: the
in-between-the-lines,
shrouded, incomprehensible,
written in sand, faint

markings that lead us
to belief or despair. I believe
it is enough to want
to believe. It is enough.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Within and Above are synonyms



Blessed is the day when the youth discovers that Within and Above are synonyms. 
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his Journal Dec. 21 1834.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Smiles and tears



". . . smiles and tears, after all, lie close to one another in a strange way."
--Kierkegaard, from Johannes Climacus

Friday, August 24, 2012

Milton and Blake--Expulsion from Paradise


(image by the incomparable William Blake)

In either hand the hastening Angel caught
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappeared.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.

--John Milton, from Paradise Lost (12.641-649)
 

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Alison Krauss . . .

. . .has one of the finest voices this side of heaven.The entire series of the Transatlantic Sessions are well worth a listen.  

Kierkegaard on existence





". . . whether I am moving in the world of sensate palpability or in the world of thought, I never reason in conclusion to existence, but I reason in conclusion from existence. For example, I do not demonstrate that a stone exists but that something which exists is a stone. The court of law does not demonstrate that a criminal exists but that the accused, who does indeed exists, is a criminal. Whether one wants to call existence an accessorium [addition] or the eternal prius [presupposition], it can never be demonstrated."

--Soren Kierkegaard, from Philosophical Fragments

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

At St. Joseph's


For Three Word Wednesday, prompt words are amuse, excite, sincere

At St. Joseph’s

Everything is white, glaring
Like the noon sun off

Of silent snow-clad hills.
Boxes full of moving parts

Startle and beep while
Robed attendants chat—

There is no quiet here. With
Amused knowing nods

They approach
The mystery as if

It makes no difference,
As if life and death

Do not excite since
Both pay the same.

It is time. Ready
Or not, permission unasked,

She’s wrenched from all
She’s ever known.

With one earnest
Gasp she finally adds

Her sincere cry.
We do not come

Laughing into the world.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Union with God



Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person, who in his integrity worships God, becomes God: yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable.
Ralph Waldo Emerson--from The Oversoul

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Mountain Music

For Three Word Wednesday, prompt words are beat, pressure, and substance. Somewhat fragmented, but headed the right direction, I think.




Mountain Music

The music, freed
from wood and string
by work-worn fingers,
followed the rising moon
up over the hills,
beat and melody
borrowed from ancient times.

I always loved the
slower tunes, sung
in mournful yearning
for lost love
or Christ’s return,
pure feeling unconstrained
by marketability,
the pressure to succeed
reaching no further than
the neighbor’s heart.

Even now, so many years
gone and the substance
of life irrevocably changed,
I go out to see
the rising moon,
remembering
calloused hands
and The Savior is a-callin’.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Wyeth's Milk Cans

Very much enjoying Richard Wilbur's Collected Poems. Here's one reason why.



Wyeth's Milk Cans
by Richard Wilbur

Beyond them, hill and field
Harden, and summer's easy
Wheel-ruts lie congealed.

What if these two bells tolled?
They'd make the bark-splintering
Music of pure cold.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Rising

Another attempt at Three Word Wednesday. Words are uneasy, drawn, and crumble (I took the liberty of changing to crumbled.) I wish I could be more consistent, but my heavy work schedule blahblahblah.

Rising

He woke
to the sound of rain
humbly descending
to earth
like an incarnate god.
Not an unqualified
blessing, this quiet falling
is known to add up,
and add up, a violent wash
scouring
the world's crust.

Yet he wakes
in hope; no uneasy
thoughts of trial
by water drawn
from sacred text
or history. Rising
like a blade of grass
from crumbled
soil, he begins
his halting resurrection.