Category: Sunday poems

“Birds deserve one whole psalm of thanksgiving”

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Birds

That God made birds is surely in His favor.
I write them as His courtesies of love.
Hidden in leaves, they offer me sweet savor
of lightsome music; when they streak above

my garden wall they brush my scene with color.
They are embroideries upon the grass.
I write the gayest stitched-in blossoms duller
than birds which change their patterns as I pass.

I nurse a holy envy of St. Francis
who lured the birds to nestle at his breast.
Yet I am grateful for this one which dances
across my lawn, a reckless anapest.

Subjects for gratitude push up my living
praise to a sum that tempts the infinite;
but birds deserve one whole psalm of thanksgiving
and these words are my antiphon for it.

Jessica Powers (1956)

Contemplations

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

A couple of poems from Anne Bradstreet about the beauty of autumn:

Contemplations (I and II)

I.
Some time now past in the autumnal tide,
When Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed,
The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride,
Were gilded o’er by his rich golden head;
Their leaves and fruits seemed painted, but was true,
Of green, of red, of yellow, mixèd hue;
Rapt were my senses at this delectable view.

II.
I wist not what to wish.  Yet sure, thought I,
If so much excellence abide below,
How excellent is He that dwells on high?
Whose power and beauty by His works we know!
Sure He is goodness, wisdom, glory, light,
That hath this under-world so richly dight.
More heaven than earth was here, no winter and no night.

Note: Phoebus–another name for the Greek god Helios, or the sun.
dight–adorned or dressed.

“Not ashamed to pray”

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Today’s Sunday-poem is by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

                Divina Commedia (1)

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
   A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
   Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
   Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
   Far off the noises of the world retreat;
   The loud vociferations of the street
   Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
   And leave my burden at this minster gate,
   Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate
   To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
   While the eternal ages watch and wait.

To sing with God

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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.

The Oriole

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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

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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.