Category: Poetry

Moses Reclothed

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

This Sunday’s poem is by Luci Shaw:

Moses Reclothed

Bare-soled he waits,
bowed bare-headed, stripped to the heart,
eyes narrowing, hands to his face
against the heat,
watching.

Hissing, the dust-dry leaves
and cobwebs shrivel
baring the curved thorns
woven with gold,
and the black-elbowed branches
wrapped in a web of flame.

Wondering, he waits
in the hot shadow of the smoking voice–
observes no quivering flake of ash
blown down-draft from the holy blaze,
no embers glowing on the ground.
Flinching, himself, before the blast
he sees the unshrinking thorny stems
alive, seared but still strong,
uncharred, piercing the fire.

Enveloped now in burning, ardent speech
he feels the hot sparks touching his
tinder soul, to turn him into flame.

and Angels danced

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

A wonderful poem about the joy of the angels when any of us repents of our sin:

Choreography for Angels

I say to you, that there is joy among the angels in heaven upon one sinner doing penance . . . (Luke 15.10)

Who spun these Angels into dance
When wars are needing artillery
Of spirits’ cannonading.  Armistice
Wants first the over-powering wings, and they
Are occupied with pirouettes!  Who did this?

Gone penitent, I caused it.  I confess it.

Who tilted flames of Seraphim
In arabesques of pure delightedness?
Is not the cosmic crisis begging fire
For full destruction of hate’s hazarding?
Why Seraphs swirling flames on floors of heaven?

I lit the heavens, when I bent my head.

Who lined mystic corps-de-ballet
Of Cherubim?  Who set in pas-de-deux
This Power with this Principality?
Why these Archangels not on mission sent
Today, but waltzing on stars, and singing?

I am the one who did this.  I confess it.
I smote my errant heart, and Angels danced.

~Mother Mary Francis (Summon Spirit’s Cry)

Arise, belovèd, come

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A very good and dear friend died very unexpectedly from cardiac arrest yesterday. . . .  This song we sing keeps going over and over in my mind:

“Arise, belovèd, come,
For spring adorns the land;
The vine in flower will bear sweet fruit;
Arise, and take my hand.”

The voice of Christ impelled
Her heart to rise and go
To hidden places carved in rock
That only lovers know.

“Arise, beloved, come,
and let me see your face,
and I will be your summer sun,
and you my dwelling place.”

She lived in faithful prayer,
The Sun her constant flame
Through autumn gold and winter snow,
Until he called her name:

“Arise, belovèd, come,
For summer walks the land.
The vine in flower has borne its fruit,
The harvest is at hand.”

~Genevieve Glen, OSB

Look at the chickadee

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A beautiful snow last night and this morning a bird singing outside my window.  This brings to mind a poem by Jessica Powers about a chickadee in a snow storm.  There is always something to be learned from God’s creatures if we just take the time to look and ask Him to help us to really see.

Look at the Chickadee

I take my lesson from the chickadee
who in the storm
receives a special fire to keep him warm,
who in the dearth of a December day
can make the seed of a dead weed his stay,
so simple and so small,
and yet the hardiest hunter of them all.

The world is winter now and I who go
loving no venture half so much as snow,
in this white blinding desert have been sent
a most concise and charming argument.
To those who seek to flout austerity,
who have a doubt of God’s solicitude
for even the most trivial of His brood,
to those whose minds are chilled with misery
I have this brief audacious word to say:
look at the chickadee,
that small perennial singer of the earth,
who makes the week of a December day
the pivot of his mirth.

~Jessica Powers

A Song for Simplicity

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Today’s poem-for-Sunday is another by Luci Shaw:

A Song for Simplicity

There are some things that should be as they are:
plain, unadorned, common, and all-complete;
things not in a clutter, not in a clump,
unmuddled and unmeddled with;
the straight, the smooth, the salt, the sour, the sweet.
For all that’s timeless, untutored, untailored, and untooled;
for innocence unschooled,
for unplowed prairies, primal snow and sod,
water unmuddied, wind unruled,
for these, thank God . . .

~Luci Shaw

The Second Giving

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

God is always giving.  This insightful poem by Jessica Powers underlines the fact that God gives most to those who are needy and empty, yet bold in their cry for more.

     The Second Giving

The second giving of God is the great giving
out of the portions of the seraphim,
abundances with which the soul is laden
once it has given up all things for Him.

The second growth of God is the rich growing,
with fruits no constant gathering can remove,
the flourishing of those who by God’s mercy
have cut themselves down to the roots of love.

God seeks a heart with bold and boundless hungers
that sees itself and earth as paltry stuff;
God loves a soul that cast down all He gave it
and stands and cries that it was not enough.

Wrestling

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This Sunday’s poem is one by Luci Shaw.  There is always risk in wrestling with God.

     With Jacob

Inexorably I cry
as I wrestle
for the blessing,
thirsty, straining
for the joining
till my desert throat
runs dry.
I must risk
the shrunken sinew
and the laming of
his naming
till I find
my final quenching
in the hollow
of his thigh.

“God make us all His Jonathans.”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

I thought, over the next few days, I would share some meditations by Amy Carmichael.  Today’s focusses on those times when we can feel “hunted” and alone–or when a friend feels hunted and alone and how we can strengthen their hands.

1 Sam 23.16 And Jonathan, Saul’s son, arose, and went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God.

God make us all His Jonathans.  There is a great hunter abroad in the world.  Like Saul who sought David every day, he seeks souls every day, never a day’s respite, always the hunt is on.  Although the words stand forever, “but God did not give him into his hands” [v. 14], yet sometimes souls tire of being hunted, and like David they are in a wilderness in a wood.  Then is Jonathan’s chance.  But notice what he does, he does not so comfort David that he becomes necessary to him.  “He strengthened his hand in God.”  He leaves his friend strong in God, resting in God, safe in God.  he detaches his dear David from himself and he attaches him to his “Very Present Help” [see Psalm 46.1].  Then Jonathan went to his house, and David abode in the wood–with God.

May God help us each to be Jonathans for each of the people in our lives.

The stars were brighter

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Two short Christmas poems:

Starry, Starry Night

     The stars were brighter
         than ever before.
     The night was different,
crackling with new beginnings.
     Something was happening
          in the dark, smelly stable;
Gift of God was before us.      (Anonymous)

Wee One in a Manger

A Wee One in a manger
Praise Him where He lies,
Angels singing carols,
Listening winter skies!   (Hayashi)

Carrying a baby prince

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

I just sent this poem by Margaret Smith to one of my godchildren who is expecting her first child in January:

Advent

Shepherds, donkeys, comets, kings . . .
This year I ponder private things:
How Mary, innocent and poor,
Felt carrying a baby prince
Inside, until she bore
Him whimpering.  I wonder, since
This Christmas I am filled
With my firstborn to carry . . .
And when the wind is stilled
At night I think of Mary.

~Margaret D. Smith