Category: Poetry

To sing with God

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

The Will of God

Time has one song along.  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 ill
to flower in pity, pardon or sweet humbling.
Evil fins 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 until he learns,
deep in his soul at least, to sing with God.

Jessica Powers

A grant of grace

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

A Sunday-poem by Jessica Powers:

Suffering

All the day long I spent the hours with suffering.
I woke to find her sitting by my bed.
She stalked my footsteps while time slowed to timeless,
tortured my sight, came close in what was said.

She asked no more than that, beneath unwelcome,
I might be mindful of her grant of grace.
I still can smile, amused, when I remember
how I surprised her when I kissed her face.

“The Mending”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

A Sunday-poem by Mother Mary Francis:

The Mending

There is no shattering love cannot mend,
No shards its gentle hands shall not make whole.
Healing, its glances brush like wings across
The deepest rawness of the heart, and leave
At last, at last no trace of briney woe.

What though we walked in ruins of a dream,
What though our tears had faded out the rose
And gold of what was once a splendid bond?
There is no shattering love cannot mend,
No shards its gentle hands shall not make whole.

Sweet is the love that never knew a wound,
But deeper that which died and rose again.

Birth of Mary

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A repost:

Today we celebrate the birth of Mary.  I have to say that this morning when I woke up, I felt like breaking into a little song to her, at least “Happy birthday to you . . .”–which sounds so trite–but I knew in my heart that that would be dear to her . . . because she is that kind of Mother.

I want to share the first verse of a poem by Rilke because I think it conveys the sense of joy in the heavens at the birth of this great gift of God to us.

Birth of Mary

O what must it have cost the angels
not suddenly to burst into song, as one bursts into tears,
since indeed they knew: on this night the mother is being
born to the boy, the One, who shall soon appear.

(Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from the German by M.D. Herter Norton)

The Oriole

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

A Sunday-poem from a blogger friend of mine:

The Oriole

I saw an Oriole come by.
Light, I thought, had learned to fly.
It seemed the sun had come to my garden
This morning, light winged, breast golden.
His song rang as bell rings clear
Whose charm pierces fleeing night, lingers
In heart’s ear but is too soon gone
While pale memory sips of sight and sound.

And I?  I must wait till sun’s return
Who, had I had my way, would have preferred
He stay and sing and shine like my own sun
In my own sky for me, for me alone;
His other works wait in other places
And he must shine on other faces.

The sun will peaceful on my garden shine
But bright light’s song has with his going flown
So I must rise and I must tell that I saw :
The brightness of day where was none before.
I saw an Oriole leap to the sky
And so I know that light can fly.

~Peadar Ban

All that is gold

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

An old, old favorite for this Sunday’s poem:

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

~J.R.R. Tolkien

“But Not With Wine”

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A Sunday-poem from Jessica Powers:

But Not With Wine

“You are drunk, but not with wine” (Isaiah 51.21)

O god of too much giving, whence is this
inebriation that possesses me,
that the staid road now wanders all amiss
and that the wind walks much too giddily,
clutching a bush for balance, or a tree?
How then can dignity and pride endure
with such inordinate mirth upon the land,
when steps and speech are somewhat insecure
and the light heart is wholly out of hand?

If there be indecorum in my songs,
fasten the blame where rightly it belongs:
on Him who offered me too many cups
of His most potent goodness–not on me,
a peasant who, because a king was host,
drank out of courtesy.

On Corpus Christi, Before the Blessed Sacrament

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

On Corpus Christi, Before the Blessed Sacrament

You languish in the darkness like
a criminal imprisoned
a sick man quarantined
an eccentric, babbling uncle, hid away.

Are they so afraid of You?
Are we so ashamed of You?
This is Your pageant day!

Where are Your holy calvacades?
Your solemn ranks of soldiers
with their Captain at their head?
Your festal, fair processions
winding through the curious crowds
who marvel at the sacred spectacle?

In the quiet I hear the echoes
from the stones of ancient streets
crying out with praise to shame us
for our silence.
In the blackness I see faces
of a multitude of children
looking down the ages, wondering
to see so plain a feast.

For the glory due Your name,
how long, O Lord,
must You wait?

~Paul Thigpen

Room in this inn

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

A Sunday-poem from Mother Mary Francis, from a longer poem entitled “The Mysteries of the Rosary”:

XIII. The Descent of the Holy Spirit

Fiat!  there’s room in this inn
Of huddled community, Mary,
For you and your telling of Jesus
Over and over again
Until there’s a splitting of heavens
And fire comes and Spirit, and souls

Are drenched with the wine of that Fiat!
That suits men for martyrs.  Is there
Space for us, too, in that upper
Room of your love where first Fiat!
Let God be Man, where first Fireing
Of Spirit enkindled Redeemer?