Category: Poetry

“Your flame is touching ours”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

There is a little known Advent tradition–at least little known to me–of using an Advent log, instead of an wreath.  “It contains a candle hole for each day of Advent, plus one for the Christmas holy day itself.”  Here is a poem I came across that refers to this lovely tradition:

Prayer at the Advent log

The small lights steady
against the dark,
Your flame is touching ours.
Today is the fifth day.
It is a safe fire,
the candles still tall
above the brittle wood
of the birch, the air
damp and chill.
But the days will draw us
inexorably toward
Your celebration,
and again we’ll stand
in the crackling air,
the first days’ flames
licking the log
with their shortened lives,
the length of it
threatened by Your fire,
Your love dazzling our eyes,
and, O Christ,
Your love searing
our nakedness.
(Jean Janzen)

Always leave your heart ajar

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

We all live in a “little town”, and we all have to do ordinary things–yet that is exactly where the Christ Child wants to be born.  Today’s poem for Sunday is all about that:

Housekeeper

This is my little town,
My Bethlehem,
And here, if anywhere,
My Christ Child
Will be born.

I must begin
To go about my day–
Sweep out the inn,
Get fresh hay for the manger
And be sure
To leave my heart ajar
In case there may be travelers
From afar.

        ~Elizabeth Rooney

And as Cardinal Schonborn says in his commentary on today’s Gospel: “Doing the simple things is not always simple, but it is certainly the best way to prepare for Christmas.”

“Shining, whole, and Godward-turned”

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I have many reasons to be thankful for this feast, that of the Immaculate Conception.  The first is that Christ was able to find someone who would give Him “an eager welcome”, who in no way would reject Him because of a sinful nature, who was pure love because He first loved us [her], because she received His love without hindrance.  And secondly, we can have great hope because in her we can see the promise God has for each of us.  Someday, through all the purifications and trials of this life, through our faltering yeses to Him, we shall become like her: “shining, whole, and Godward-turned.”  Someday, He will see His image clearly in us as well.   And someday we will never refuse His love for us.  O, sweet Mother, intercede for us.  We do thank Him for you.

December Eighth

 Beloved, Mother of us all,
Today we remember
That, of all earth’s millions,
You, Mary, in the womb,
Were shining, whole,
And Godward-turned.
You only, O Morning Star,
Lighted the clouds of sin and waiting.
You only, Immaculate Ark,
Glided above the depths of the primal curse;
For you were to bear safely over those waters
Emmanuel, your little Son, from whose baby hand
Streams the rainbow up which we climb to God.
You only, little white moon, are the crystal
Reflection of our Sun.
But for your whiteness, O Gate of Heaven,
We had never entered, nor seen our God.
But for your loveliness, O Mystic Rose,
We had never breathed the Rose of Sharon.
White Tower of David, Ivory Tower,
Princess whose beauty lured Love’s kiss when life began,
Mother, who died a thousand deaths for us,
We thank Him for you.
To-day, when He smiles to see His image in you, clear,
Remember us.

~Sr. St. Francis S.S.J. 
 (Robert, Cyril. Mary Immaculate: God’s Mother and Mine. New York: Marist Press, 1946.)

When Israel went out of Egypt

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The poem for today may not strike you immediately as a poem for Advent, but as you read it, I think you’ll see why I chose it.  It’s a poem I just came across by one of my favorite writers, Anthony Esolen, who just this past week posted it to Touchstone’s blog. Here’s the link, and I do hope that you savor and relish it as much as I did upon reading it.  Let’s never go back to Egypt . . .

“Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

This Sunday’s poem is one by Jessica Powers, written in 1948:

Advent

I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.
And on one night when a great star swings free
from its high mooring and walks down the sky
to be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
with hope’s expectance of nativity.

I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
guarded and loved me, though I could not see.
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
someone is hidden in this dark with me.

               ~Jessica Powers, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, p. 81.

A pure transparent pool

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

I’ve been thinking about how I would answer my own query at the end of yesterday’s post, and one thing that immediately came to mind that brings beauty into my own life is a little photo album of art prints and such that I have collected.  For many of them I have an accompanying quote on the facing page.  Often I use it as an accompaniment in prayer, a source of meditation.  One example of this can be found here.  And here is another example:

I find this image of Mary quite beautiful.  Its title is Mary, the Mother and Consolation of the Grieving.   The following is the poem I have placed opposite it:

THE POOL OF GOD

There was nothing in the Virgin’s soul
that belonged to the Virgin–
no word, no thought, no image, no intent.
She was a pure, transparent pool reflecting
God, only God.
She held His burnished day; she held His night
of planet-glow or shade inscrutable.
God was her sky and she who mirrored Him
became His firmament.

When I so much as turn my thoughts toward her
my spirit is enisled in her repose.
And when I gaze into her selfless depths
an anguish in me grows
to hold such blueness and to hold such fire.
I pray to hollow out my earth and be
filled with these waters of transparency.
I think that one could die of this desire,
seeing oneself dry earth or stubborn sod.
Oh, to become a pure soul like the Virgin,
water that lost the semblances of water
and was a sky like God.
~Jessica Powers

The Homecoming

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Still thinking a lot about our Homeland, and, of course, about my aunt’s journey there.  I was thumbing through my collection of Jessica Power’s poetry and found this most apt poem.  (Poetry is one of the solaces in my life.)

Return of the prodigal son (Tissot)

The Homecoming

The spirit, newly freed from earth,
is all amazed at the surprise
of her belonging: suddenly
as native to eternity
to see herself, to realize
the heritage that lets her be
at home where all this glory lies.

By naught foretold could she have guessed
such welcome home: the robe, the ring,
music and endless banqueting,
these people hers; this place of rest
known, as of long remembering
herself a child of God and pressed
with warm endearments to His breast.

            ~Jessica Powers, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, p. 53

The same will be true for us: the robe, the ring, the banqueting, and best of all, the warm endearments as we are pressed to His breast.

Come soon

Sr. Dorcee, beloved4 Comments

My mom had only one sibling, a younger sister, my Aunt Dorothy.  After my mom died ten years ago, my aunt became my other mother.  I would tell her: “You’re the closest thing to my mother that I have, and I’m the closest thing to my mother that you have.”  I could go visit her and feel like I was at my mom’s.  I could find the same unconditional love there as I did at my mom’s.  She’s been sick the last couple of months with recurrence of cancer, and I was able to spend some good times with her.  My cousin, Matt, called yesterday and said that she had taken a turn for the worse, so I drove up immediately to see her.  She was unresponsive, but I was able to tell her I loved her and God loved her and thank her for everything.  This morning I found out that she died peacefully a half hour after I left, with her two youngest children holding her, one of them with her hand on my aunt’s heart. 

I can’t help but think that I’m starting Advent early.  Advent is all about Christ’s coming, His first coming and His second coming, and these kinds of comings at the moment of death.  Of course, I’m mourning her loss.  I’ve lost my other mother.   I’m now the oldest on that side of the family.  But she’s with the One who loves her the most.  The One we all long to be with.  This poem has been going through my mind the past few hours. 

Come Soon

I set my candle where the shadows loom,
A flame of faith between the eyes of fate,
And I am waiting in the windy gloom;
O come, my Love, for it is growing late.
Small doubts on darkling wings flit here and there
Uncertainly in the grey, lingering light;
Mysterious music haunts the troubled air,
And none but you can comfort me tonight.

I wait upon the moment’s hazard now;
Is there no power can hold the darkness back
Until you come?  O do not disavow
Your promised love–the one thing I most lack.
The hour is late, dear Love, come soon, come soon;
Then shall the night be lovelier than noon.

               ~Hazel Littlefied Smith

My aunt now knows the one thing she most lacked, for her Love has come for her.  May He come soon for all of us “waiting in the windy gloom.”

King’s Council

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Today is the Feast of Christ the King.  “The King of love my shepherd is  . . . ” 

The poem for this Sunday speaks of a personal response to this King of ours:

King’s Council

From the four zones of my universe
They come, the rulers of my dioceses:
Fine-featured dreams and hawk-nosed fears,
Shabby compromises with scrawny necks.

Ageing hopes pull back their rounded shoulders.
Love comes in borrowed crimson, having spent
Her robes on the unbeautiful.  And, last
That patriarch, old faith, comes shuffling in.

Here is the council of me, God.  Look!  see,
Them all cast down their mitres at Your feet!

      ~Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. (Summon Spirit’s Cry, p. 125)

I have more than I prayed for

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The poem I chose for this Sunday could more accurately be termed “poetic prose.”  It’s a piece by Catherine Doherty, and I’m not sure of its source.  Her perspective on God’s work in our souls during dark times gives great food for thought.  It is obvious, at least to me, that the place at which she arrives is absolutely a work of grace–but one which God can do for each of us.  It is one of the great paradoxes of the spiritual life, one which Luci Shaw addressed in her poem, “Of Consolation” which starts: “It is down/makes/up seem/taller . . .” 

   I prayed to God for songs and laughter.  He gave me tears instead.  I prayed for life in valleys green, full of harvest rich.  He led me through deserts arid and heights where snow alone could feel at home.

   I prayed for sun, lots of dancing, and sparkling rivers to sail upon.  He gave me night, quite dark, starless, and thirst to guide me through its waste.

   But now I know that I was foolish, for I have more than I prayed for.

   I have the Son for bridegroom.  The music of his voice is a valley green, and river sparkling on which I sail.  My soul is dancing, dancing with endless joy in the dark night he shares with me.

An unknown Puritan many years before had written something similar in a poem entitled, “The Valley of Vision”, which includes this line: “Let me learn by paradox/that the way down/is the way up . . .”  The poem ends:

Lord, in the daytime stars can
     be seen from deepest wells,
          and the deeper the wells
               the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
               thy life in my death,
               thy joy in my sorrow,
               thy grace in my sin,
               thy riches in my poverty,
               thy glory in my valley.

May you find His light in your darkness. . .