Category: Poetry

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

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

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

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

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. . .

We praise thee, Lord, for saints unknown

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

A Sunday-poem by Bishop R. Heber for this Feast of All Saints:

We praise thee, Lord, for all the martyred throng,
those who by fire and sword or suffering long
Laid down their lives, but would not yield to wrong:
                                                                Alleluia!

For those who fought to keep the faith secure,
For all those whose hearts were selfless, strong and pure,
For those whose courage taught us to endure:
                                                                 Alleluia!

For fiery spirits, held and God-controlled,
For gentle natures by his power made bold,
For all whose gracious lives God’s love retold:
                                                                 Alleluia!

Thanks be to thee, O Lord, for saints unknown,
Who by obedience to thy word have shown
That thou didst call and mark them for thine own.
                                                                  Alleluia!

The Doorkeeper

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

To keep God’s door—
I am not fit.
I would not ask more
Than this–
    To stand or sit
Upon the threshold of God’s House
Out of the reach of sin,
To open wide His door
To those who come,
To welcome Home
His children and His poor:
To wait and watch
The gladness on the face of those
That are within:
Sometimes to catch
A glimpse or trace of those
That are within
That all I failed to be,
And all I failed to do,
Has not sufficed
To bar them from the Tree
Of Life, the Paradise of God,
The Face of Christ.

                        John W. Taylor

If It Were Not So.

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

       If It Were Not So

I thought I heard my Savior say to me,
My love will never weary, child, of thee.
Then in me, whispering doubtfully and low,
     How can that be?
     He answered me,
But if it were not so
I would have told thee.

I thought I heard my Savior say to me,
My strength encamps on weakness–so on thee.
And when a wind of fear did through me blow,
     How can that be?
     He answered me,
But if it were not so
I would have told thee.

     O most fine Gold
     That naught in me can dim,
     Eternal Love
     that hath her home in Him
     Whom seeing not I love,
     I worship Thee.

                        ~Amy Carmichael

Humility

“[Humility] is to have a place to hide/when all is hurricane outside.” (Jessica Powers)

Rate this:

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

This Sunday’s poem is by Jessica Powers:

               Humility

Humility is to be still
under the weathers of God’s will.

It is to have no hurt surprise
when morning’s ruddy promise dies,

when wind and drought destroy, or sweet
spring rains apostatize in sleet,

or when the mind and month remark
a superfluity of dark.

It is to have no troubled care
for human weathers anywhere.

And yet it is to take the good
with the warm hands of gratitude.

Humility is to have place
deep in the secret of God’s face

where one can know, past all surmise,
that God’s great will alone is wise,

where one is loved, where one can trust
a strength not circumscribed by dust.

It is to have a place to hide
when all is hurricane outside.

                         Jessica Powers (1947; 1984)

Open

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

This is a powerful Easter poem by Luci Shaw.  I know it’s not the Easter season, but I think it’s at times like these–as we’re moving into the physically darker seasons of fall and winter, and sometimes simultaneously darker emotional seasons for some of us–that we need to remember that we are always an Easter people.      

                  Open
             John 20:19, 26

Doubt padlocked one door and
Memory put her back to the other.
Still the damp draught seeped in, though
Fear chinked all the cracks and
Blindness boarded up the window.
In the darkness that was left
Defeat crouched, shivering,
In his cold corner.

Then Jesus came
(all the doors being shut)
and stood among them.

                              Luci Shaw

The Appearance of Christ at the Cenacle
The Appearance of Christ at the Cenacle (James Tissot)