I'll let these poems speak for themselves. From the dates of their creation, you can surmise the spiritual and creative intensity of this time in my life. I did a tremendous amount of wildly eclectic but deep reading throughout this time: George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Thomas Hardy, Plato, Soren Kierkegaard, Paul Tillich, Vladmir Nabokov, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Thomas Paine, William James, Virgil (hence the title of this "blog"), Jean Paul Sartre...and their influence is probably obvious, especially Dickinson in terms of style.
Most of the winter/spring poems were written in my head during lunch breaks, and I would write them down in the evening. For better or worse, I did not revise them. I could write them down from memory even today. As you see how weak the writing is, be glad I did not preserve the rest.
By its nature a blog is narcissistic and confessional verse is more so. I do not love myself half so much as these two things imply.
A Christian Burial
Our Mentor died today though
round her bed I heaped
Verse and Petition to
honor Connection's Past.
Of Expansion
Neglect she Contracted and
old wounds - not I - her
Interment deliver. Souls -
Rites - fade in her and
life's prospect Under After
invokes Fear's cold grip
(1/23/95)
A Plea: Post-Modern
I hope my children Common be
whose thoughts lean toward Eternity
who lack a keen peripheral sight
whose sun doubtless surpasses night.
No Intellect conscribe their ways
no fearful thoughts, no tearful days
no Question shake the snowy limb
no broken faith their hope to dim.
The Joy I seek whose grounds are true
eludes my grasp-- away it flew
mounted on Poetry's frail wing
a darkling Hint of light to sing.
My offspring in God's house can stay--
No soul should walk my lonely way.
(1/27/95. Blame Matthew Arnold for the word 'darkling.')
Emotion and Morality
tossed their wed vows askance
Morality with Law beds down-
Joy and Distraction dance.
(1/27/95)
Carousel
Children hide - inside - and
Cold snows blow -
I balance the
World
In one hand. Of
Time's circuit (wider) -
Sole rider -
Sole rider.
(2/13/95)
Messiah
Early bird - too early - your fine cerulean
Jacket unfit for snow and three days straight
Of ten below. Sacrificed, but-
Thirty-three revolutions would deceive any
Savior. David - they - and we: the tree of life - hope
Ever nailed to ego-vision.
Confession: your pre-empted stay - unheard. Mercy's
Quiet trilling lost in my television's masturbatory
Blare.
Unknown - still - had power lines ignored your
Strained final Exhalation.
Silence:
My soul swept in to deafen me and
- Perfect - whispered poetry. Morning mourning - twice passed
Hope - two saviors sung and gone. Your blue
Tuft slain in my backyard betrays the pallor
Of my world.
(4/1/95. I found a frozen bluebird in the yard. It made me think of Christ (honestly, it did), who was not recognized by the Jews of his day because they were awaiting a temporal king, a return of David. And we focus on living forever...when he spoke of right living. We are always selfish.)
The Goat
My conscience keeps close company
With those who mentored my ascent -
From Fields of Faith and Piety
To Cliffs of haunted Discontent -
Each thought bears their collective Gaze -
A constant Dissertation trial -
Sometimes returns the Western blaze
Sometimes the disappointed smile.
But this Plateau is mine to search
Guided by conscience - solitaire -
Their Voices fail to reach my perch -
I'm left with Tears and desperate Prayer.
No Compass, Astrolabe, or Chart
Could Map the yearnings of the heart
That once was I AM's hallowed ground -
That bush His throne - and I His clown.
(4/3/95. The final quatrain could be my epitaph.)
Astonish me, Word of First Cause -
Calando End, Refuse!
Escape the Text we booked You by -
Conflate my song with Yours.
(4/3/95. That third line is perhaps the best I've ever written.)
The Scholar's Hope
The scholar's body, God forgive-
Denies the Life, yet boasts to live.
To scholared mind, may God impart-
Claiming the Whole, but knowing Part.
The scholar's heart, let God reveal
The dreams of Faith it would conceal.
The scholar's soul, Mercy, reclaim
When dust and worms the shroud rename.
(4/4/95)
How empty is the Sacrifice
To die and three days rise again -
How humbling a Hell-cast Christ:
Eternal Ransom for my sin.
(4/4/95. This is a heretical poem, I'm afraid, but I can't unthink a thought. If the wages of sin are eternal death, a three-day punishment cannot cover them. Maybe Christ suffers for us still.)
Let knowledge linger where it can -
To some it is a telescope,
Bringing the Heavens down to Man
Enlarging dreams of Human Hope.
Yet I would ask it to refrain
From visiting the Sorrowed heart -
It cannot soothe the Soul in pain -
In Comfort, knowledge plays no part.
(4/4/95)
Church Interview*
Why dangerous ? the Chair implored
full knowing why - but probing sought
its origin : through chance or thought
young Icarus! your story lent
would illustrate my word's intent :
the book unopened - safer thing -
truth often melts the self-wrought wing
on which Identity has soared.
* Written in reference to a meeting with a Dr. Church, Chair of the English Department at Binghamton University where I had applied to graduate school. He asked why I had written that teaching literature would be a dangerous occupation.
(4/13/95)
Reason has defeated me-
I fought the Tyrant well-
If God there be who loves the lost
No soul more safe from Hell.
(5/2/95)
Twenty minutes - then - from downhill -
the dog returns - formless void
in the
formless Void - and sits - uncertain -
at my side. The Big Dipper -
last lost symbol - outstands
the multitude above -
I would cry to hear them
sing.
The dog slips to his pen - patient
victim of my disarray.
Quietly I watch him go - then -
follow to my
Routine.
(5/21/95. The earth was once at the center of it all, bathed in the music of the celestial spheres. Now it is a speck in a speck in a vast, cold, chaotic nothing.)
I would keep my Garden neat
in Fearless Symmetry
And march my seedling Troops in
Perfect columns through my Mind.
Awake! the Revelry! I find my
Faithful Few dispersed -
Usurped by Nature's Army clad
in Gold-Crowned Disarray!
(5/27/95. I have never been more like Dickinson than in this poem. I love dandelions.)
Little spider
On my book
You crawl across the Lines I write
Who taught you nakedness?
Who taught you Wrong from Right?
Who granted you the privilege to know the Mind of God?
Who taught the Crush of Death by hanging Life upon a Word?
(5/29/95. Original sin is such a strange concept, probably prehistoric.)
Grubs and Moths
Grubs: We crawl and crawl
this bastard ball
when we would fly -
We search the sky
and crawl and crawl
when we would fly.
Moths: Closer still -
We would be. The
Light is bright! It
Blinds the night! It
Draws and
Draws and
Draws us
Near. We
Burn and die and wonder
Why. But -
We would be -
Closer
Still -
(6/15/95)
When I was a child
I thought God a Father
(and father a god)
and I loved them both.
When I became a man
my father became one too
and I knew he was no god
but a finite man like me.
When I became a man
I put away my childish thoughts
and God was no Father
nor any named thing
but the pure ideal in our likeness.
And I loved them both
more truly.
(6/19/95)
Small Wrinkle
When I forgive the Souls that bump
with mine and cause me Pain
I do not make them Beg for it -
I pour my Grace like Rain.
Some shrug and turn Away - I hope
they find a Brighter End -
Some drink my Gift in Glad Surprise
and henceforth call me Friend.
If I forgive the Souls that do
not ask for Grace of me
Why cannot God forgive the same
when from his Face they flee?
(7/2/95)
An Encounter
I raised my lantern in the dark'ning wood
Where first my feet mistread remembered ways
A figure draped in black before me stood -
Her face a crescent moon of palest white
As though she slept through all the sunny days
And woke with every dawning of the night.
Her Eyes were liquid mirrors of the stars -
Her crimson lips their plight in silence spoke
On her fair cheek I thought I traced a scar -
The faintest fissure in her loveliness -
The string of sorrow from her temple broke
Down to the collar of her sombre dress.
She turned away. I followed in a trance
And trembled in my breast to know her name
But dared not ask under the circumstance
As though to speak would break the magic spell
Of tranquil fear that set my soul aflame
And hide this Dryad in her secret dell.
She took no path that I could recognize -
Though in that wood experience I had -
I thrust my lantern out before my eyes
Intending to redeem my stumbling feet -
She stopped - I heard her voice so full and sad,
The haunting voice heard by Ulysses' fleet.
'If you would walk with me
blow out the light.'
(7/17/95. Packed with cliche, sorry. I do know this though: if you want to see the stars, you must stand in darkness.)
God
find me
how long must the sparrow fall
how far must the sheep wander
how lonely must the soul become
the tomb was empty
where are you hidden
I am lost
in looking for you.
(8/3/95-- I know what it means to pray without ceasing. I set the poem above to my own arrangement for solo voice of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings and sang it in July 2010, quite unaccountably, to the sweet souls who attend Wednesday night prayer meeting at my church. As I am not a strong singer, this was a double-dose of discomfort for these gentle people, especially as the arrangement runs about seven minutes.)
twelve dozen dead flies
on a windowsill
in the silent nursery
at my father-in-law's church
once danced against the glass
in worship of the sun -
one still does -
I open.
the window
(8/3/95. My father-in-law, Ron Johns, preached at Etna Baptist Church, outside Ithaca, NY, a church of about twenty people, no children. After service one Sunday, I made my way into the shut up old nursery, thick with dust and cobwebs and heat. The windowsill was littered with a black layer of dead cluster flies....and one still alive, buzzing against the glass.)
fishing-hole
papa you are sad
yes
why
there are no fish
I catch fish
you catch minnows
?
when I was your age I caught big fish here
a minnow is big to me
yes
are you crying papa
(8/3/95...For many Christians, the central question is whether or not to obey God's voice. But for some, the question is whether or not that voice is really God's. Paul Tillich speaks of this quandary in relation to the story of Abraham and Isaac. Even memory can deceive us, as this poem was meant to show. The pastor at my church has said several times that God is at the foundation of every line of study. To a large extent, I agree. But beneath even that is epistemology. How do we know and how do we know that we know?)
One Dolt Responds to "The Fascination of What's Difficult"*
Must you disparage so the Toiling Herd
Who knowing naught of Flight dismiss the Fall
Your darling colt complains? You think: too small
The stable for high Things - I am a bird.
Of course the Plowhorse chides your braying Fit -
He breaks his back - you seem to balk the bit.
But I know the search that in your Soul stirred -
The dazzling Fascination of the sun,
The fiery Difficulty of Maud Gonne,
The stable-Child: hope's soft and tragic Word.
Don't blame the Common - walk the burdened road -
With Wax and fifty Feathers lift their load
Singing that Song you think your Pony heard.
* I was enrolled now in graduate work at SUNY Cortland. Though I like much of W.B.Yeats' work, one particular poem got under my skin. This poem is the result.
(10/11/95)
The Lost Sheep Mourns the Shepherd
(I wrote this poem as the final project of a graduate course on Milton in lieu of a typical research paper. It is essentially the same poem in spirit as the "God find me..." poem I'd written in August. This poem follows the conventions of pastoral elegy, in the style of Milton, and as a deep-hearted response to Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, and especially to Lycidas. Only a very long-suffering reader would ever uncover the tremendous amount of methodical thought and historical reference and wordplay I tried to pack into this poem, or notice the figures of Milton/Samson and Martin Luther, so I will just present it as a failed effort which still means a great deal to me today. Noralin Masselink, the Milton scholar who taught that course, thought the poem was a success. I have fond memories of writing most of this poem in the Cortland Public Library, in a room where local artists had put their paintings on display. Unlike Milton who used blank verse, I made up a very complicated triple-rhyme scheme for my elegy...a,a,b,c,c,b,d,d,c,e,e,d....I don't know what possessed me to do such a thing, as it makes for some convoluted phrasing in the hands of this subpar writer. I sometimes recite this poem when mopping the church gym floor. This is why one should avoid going there Saturday nights.)
On Hesperus -- whose volant Eye
Now claims my Wilderness -- rely
Those faded hopes my Foldless soul
Regurgitates. To Aaron's Rod
May grief aspire ? this Sterile sod 5
Bring forth the Laurel crown ? No goal
Triumphant guides my wayward feet
Nor City gold nor gold-paved Street --
For weary Love this Mount I trod.
Fair star -- am I to weep alone -- 10
My baleful bleating softly moan
That Absence Omnipresent ? Sweet
Soliloquy -- to Naught my prayer
And Naught am I but dread Despair
And writhing Woe -- true Joy has flown 15
Away, the Shepherd disappeared --
My Shepherd who so gently sheared
Those tangled Doubts from me. Oh where
That Shepherd's Voice who Mercy sung
Upon my blemished soul ? Begun : 20
The soul's Dark Night -- Dread Dark -- long Feared
Though by Fear long Denied.
This elegy, what Grace may guide ?
My graceless mind Absurdly sprung
With Melancholy undertones 25
Compels Thalia to the throne --
Pastoral reigning : Comic tied.
Remember him, the Good Shepherd
Whose gentle loving Voice bestirred
Devotion in my brittle bones. 30
On verdant Fields we Danced when first
From Pristine Sleep glad Morning burst
Night's curtained Face and every bird
Trilled lissome Lays, grateful to Dawn's
Resplendent Gift. Beside lush Lawns 35
The gelid water quenched my thirst
And wading waters cooled my feet --
In Meadows wide he bid me eat
Choice Legumes, Grains, and Grasses grown
Before my enemies. He played 40
His piping Cheer until Dawn strayed
Past prime -- then Sorrow dropped. Repeat
That hateful hour ? from sleep I waked
To find my Shepherd gone -- all Ached
Within. No Fallacy to tell 45
How Evergreens in anguish Fell
Nor how the Pastures heaving quaked
In Sorrow for my tragic Loss
Since Tears with trembling Visions gloss
Indifferent Nature's Mundane Shell. 50
How cold the Heart : how cold the Rain --
Innocence chants the best Refrain
But Experience writes the Verse.
How drear was that desperate morning March --
Through Foreign Fields began the search 55
For him I loved -- Unsure if Slain
Or never Known but dreamed him Known.
On an Elm branch high -- lying prone --
A Lion from his lichened Perch
Descried my tear-stained Fleece and purred 60
Lightheartedly. His joy inferred
The Shepherd : trembling to Atone
Myself I hailed the pilose Beast
Who bid my Lamentations ceased
As though that power mine. In words 65
Commanding he reproached entire
My forlorn Heresy. With Ire
A Nazarite approached the Feast --
That auburn Eater rent apart
By strong limbs Bare, by written Art 70
Destroyed. My epigone -- desire
That foul Beast -- Convention -- who with
Treacherous error lies beneath
Thanatopsis ? Let Reason chart
Your Willful Woe -- this Wilderness 75
Navigate, forsaking lifeless
Detractors of Life -- whose late death
May yet translucent Sweetness yield.
He led me to a Grassy Field
Clover inmixed and me addressed 80
In Tone Authorial -- Behold
How Fallen Good confounded folds
Confusion in her Arms, Revealed
By Contrast now. But Reason burns
Contagion's Blast, the soul's fleshed Urn 85
Impales -- then Paralyzed Will, lulled
Long, Atonement may Choose.
Certainty makes Glad the heart whose
Joy -- with confidence -- overturns
Contemplative Sorrow, as lambs 90
Unnerved hasten to milk their dams.
The Nazarite five Foxes loosed
Upon the Field -- with cords secure
Firebrands to Tails affixed. With Pure
Bright flame Reason's agents ran 95
Unbid -- the destruction was outrageous --
Consuming equally both Grass
And Clover. My Good Shepherd dear
By Thoughtful Intellect unfound --
Still gone and now the Wasted ground 100
Distorted throws the feet. Alas --
But how the Fallen Senses rage
Without command. And none assuage
Their thirsting. No Scarlet Thread found
Nor Right path blazed, but all Things turned 105
To Ash. How late the lesson learned --
Reason must pay the Senses' Wage
While still they roam. Let inner Light
Above the Senses reign -- by sight
Within, the Shepherd is discerned 110
In consonance. My eyes go Blind
To Temporal caress -- the Mind
Unburdened Sees -- Hail Holy Light!
To him Triumphant Anthems raise
Throughout Eternity! His praise 115
Was cut short by a Bold-Faced Priest behind
Him, who walked in swain's low garb, with Nail
And Rock a closed Door to assail
And ninety-five would leave to save
The one, however lost it be. 120
He spoke to him who Blind could See
My Shepherd's precious Face. How fails
The westered star, my epigone,
And grievous Wolves of Works condone
The Truth with Fancy mixed. Now we 125
Their Edifice shall fix -- by Faith
Alone their Work reduce that safe
The Will might Choose. I felt my own
Confusion lift, unknown -- as now --
The Terror of their Plan -- for how 130
Might unsupported Will vouchsafe
Reunion's Joy ? The Priest held fast
The Nazarite and led him past
The late scorched Fields to higher ground
Where massive Twin Pillars upheld 135
A Vaulted Roof over a Fold
Of Congested Flocks -- Overcast
With misplaced hope. The Nazarite
Put his mighty hands on the Upright
Bars -- one named Reason the other called 140
Fancy -- with a clear Conscience, apart
The Pillars pressed. What dreadful Art
Could topple such a Place where light
Abundant seemed ? Fancied Reason --
Reasoned Fancy -- all Joys are won 145
Through these, save those where Simple Hearts
In Life's short Moment find Delight :
That nymph whom Zephyr loved, the white
Anemone -- red Trillium --
Hepatica, whose blue eye first 150
Beneath the still-dead Black Oak burst
Through winter's frozen Night --
Fair Fawn Lily -- the Columbine --
Sweet Lady's Slipper in her Pine-
Boughed, needle-strewn Bed -- the leaf-nursed 155
White Bloodroot -- bright Butterflyweed,
Who bears a Nectared torch -- Milkweed --
Blue Chicory -- climbing Woodbine,
To Morning Glory close -- the late
Viewed Goldenrod where Mantes wait 160
At season's End for winter feed --
The shy Evening-Primrose who hides
Herself in Night's Array beside
The Fairy Smoke. All these locate
Delight in Life -- Unseen they die 165
And die Content. Unfeeling Eye!
Unfolded still my tearful cry
In mournful Cadence falls. Where side
My Will ? how find my Shepherd's way ?
To fierce Convention's foul decay 170
I wearily returned in my
Distress and found the Foretold Sweet
Of Truth reborn of Error's meat.
Parousia -- or Memory?
Was that Soft Breeze the Shepherd's sound 175
Or my Echoed desire ? Around
This Barren Mountain will I meet
With Mercy's Face ? My only plot :
To Grace as though still Graced. It's not
For Lost to Find but to be Found. 180
(12/4/95)
December Twenty-Nine
Ten years tonight since fire destroyed our home
And like Aeneas I have wandered far
And find -- searching heavens for Heaven's star --
All roads to Carthage turn, and not to Rome.
(12/23/95-- When I was fifteen, our house burned down four days after Christmas. Virgil's Aeneid deserves a wider audience.)
Overlooking Virgil
Though laughter fills his face at every turn
Along the storm-struck interstate, my boy
Is tired: I see an old man’s weariness
Within his youthful eyes, as if his soul 4
Reflects no little portion of my form
And something of my inner turbulence.
He looks at me with sure, admiring looks --
The boy much loves so much not worth his love -- 8
And asks me when I think the rain will end.
An earnest question simply put. And yet
It throws awry my careful guarded thoughts.
The rain? I look into the darkening sky 12
Where shuddering clouds hang low and thunder pounds
In broken chords, a terrible dissonance;
Where unsteady wind blows directionless,
Tearing old leaves from limbs, old limbs from trees, 16
Old trees from where as seed they kissed the earth.
And over all, bright shocks of lightening charge
And randomly discharge.
(Fall 1996. I abandoned this attempt at narrative verse in favor of a prose version I will post later. I love line eight and wish I always wrote with such felicity. The story is a retelling of the Aeneas/Dido story in Virgil's Aeneid. At the time I was writing, I lived on a hill overlooking Virgil, NY, where the story was to be set.)
Morality with Law beds down-
Joy and Distraction dance.
(1/27/95)
Carousel
Children hide - inside - and
Cold snows blow -
I balance the
World
In one hand. Of
Time's circuit (wider) -
Sole rider -
Sole rider.
(2/13/95)
Messiah
Early bird - too early - your fine cerulean
Jacket unfit for snow and three days straight
Of ten below. Sacrificed, but-
Thirty-three revolutions would deceive any
Savior. David - they - and we: the tree of life - hope
Ever nailed to ego-vision.
Confession: your pre-empted stay - unheard. Mercy's
Quiet trilling lost in my television's masturbatory
Blare.
Unknown - still - had power lines ignored your
Strained final Exhalation.
Silence:
My soul swept in to deafen me and
- Perfect - whispered poetry. Morning mourning - twice passed
Hope - two saviors sung and gone. Your blue
Tuft slain in my backyard betrays the pallor
Of my world.
(4/1/95. I found a frozen bluebird in the yard. It made me think of Christ (honestly, it did), who was not recognized by the Jews of his day because they were awaiting a temporal king, a return of David. And we focus on living forever...when he spoke of right living. We are always selfish.)
The Goat
My conscience keeps close company
With those who mentored my ascent -
From Fields of Faith and Piety
To Cliffs of haunted Discontent -
Each thought bears their collective Gaze -
A constant Dissertation trial -
Sometimes returns the Western blaze
Sometimes the disappointed smile.
But this Plateau is mine to search
Guided by conscience - solitaire -
Their Voices fail to reach my perch -
I'm left with Tears and desperate Prayer.
No Compass, Astrolabe, or Chart
Could Map the yearnings of the heart
That once was I AM's hallowed ground -
That bush His throne - and I His clown.
(4/3/95. The final quatrain could be my epitaph.)
Astonish me, Word of First Cause -
Calando End, Refuse!
Escape the Text we booked You by -
Conflate my song with Yours.
(4/3/95. That third line is perhaps the best I've ever written.)
The Scholar's Hope
The scholar's body, God forgive-
Denies the Life, yet boasts to live.
To scholared mind, may God impart-
Claiming the Whole, but knowing Part.
The scholar's heart, let God reveal
The dreams of Faith it would conceal.
The scholar's soul, Mercy, reclaim
When dust and worms the shroud rename.
(4/4/95)
How empty is the Sacrifice
To die and three days rise again -
How humbling a Hell-cast Christ:
Eternal Ransom for my sin.
(4/4/95. This is a heretical poem, I'm afraid, but I can't unthink a thought. If the wages of sin are eternal death, a three-day punishment cannot cover them. Maybe Christ suffers for us still.)
Let knowledge linger where it can -
To some it is a telescope,
Bringing the Heavens down to Man
Enlarging dreams of Human Hope.
Yet I would ask it to refrain
From visiting the Sorrowed heart -
It cannot soothe the Soul in pain -
In Comfort, knowledge plays no part.
(4/4/95)
Church Interview*
Why dangerous ? the Chair implored
full knowing why - but probing sought
its origin : through chance or thought
young Icarus! your story lent
would illustrate my word's intent :
the book unopened - safer thing -
truth often melts the self-wrought wing
on which Identity has soared.
* Written in reference to a meeting with a Dr. Church, Chair of the English Department at Binghamton University where I had applied to graduate school. He asked why I had written that teaching literature would be a dangerous occupation.
(4/13/95)
Reason has defeated me-
I fought the Tyrant well-
If God there be who loves the lost
No soul more safe from Hell.
(5/2/95)
Twenty minutes - then - from downhill -
the dog returns - formless void
in the
formless Void - and sits - uncertain -
at my side. The Big Dipper -
last lost symbol - outstands
the multitude above -
I would cry to hear them
sing.
The dog slips to his pen - patient
victim of my disarray.
Quietly I watch him go - then -
follow to my
Routine.
(5/21/95. The earth was once at the center of it all, bathed in the music of the celestial spheres. Now it is a speck in a speck in a vast, cold, chaotic nothing.)
I would keep my Garden neat
in Fearless Symmetry
And march my seedling Troops in
Perfect columns through my Mind.
Awake! the Revelry! I find my
Faithful Few dispersed -
Usurped by Nature's Army clad
in Gold-Crowned Disarray!
(5/27/95. I have never been more like Dickinson than in this poem. I love dandelions.)
Little spider
On my book
You crawl across the Lines I write
Who taught you nakedness?
Who taught you Wrong from Right?
Who granted you the privilege to know the Mind of God?
Who taught the Crush of Death by hanging Life upon a Word?
(5/29/95. Original sin is such a strange concept, probably prehistoric.)
Grubs and Moths
Grubs: We crawl and crawl
this bastard ball
when we would fly -
We search the sky
and crawl and crawl
when we would fly.
Moths: Closer still -
We would be. The
Light is bright! It
Blinds the night! It
Draws and
Draws and
Draws us
Near. We
Burn and die and wonder
Why. But -
We would be -
Closer
Still -
(6/15/95)
When I was a child
I thought God a Father
(and father a god)
and I loved them both.
When I became a man
my father became one too
and I knew he was no god
but a finite man like me.
When I became a man
I put away my childish thoughts
and God was no Father
nor any named thing
but the pure ideal in our likeness.
And I loved them both
more truly.
(6/19/95)
Small Wrinkle
When I forgive the Souls that bump
with mine and cause me Pain
I do not make them Beg for it -
I pour my Grace like Rain.
Some shrug and turn Away - I hope
they find a Brighter End -
Some drink my Gift in Glad Surprise
and henceforth call me Friend.
If I forgive the Souls that do
not ask for Grace of me
Why cannot God forgive the same
when from his Face they flee?
(7/2/95)
An Encounter
I raised my lantern in the dark'ning wood
Where first my feet mistread remembered ways
A figure draped in black before me stood -
Her face a crescent moon of palest white
As though she slept through all the sunny days
And woke with every dawning of the night.
Her Eyes were liquid mirrors of the stars -
Her crimson lips their plight in silence spoke
On her fair cheek I thought I traced a scar -
The faintest fissure in her loveliness -
The string of sorrow from her temple broke
Down to the collar of her sombre dress.
She turned away. I followed in a trance
And trembled in my breast to know her name
But dared not ask under the circumstance
As though to speak would break the magic spell
Of tranquil fear that set my soul aflame
And hide this Dryad in her secret dell.
She took no path that I could recognize -
Though in that wood experience I had -
I thrust my lantern out before my eyes
Intending to redeem my stumbling feet -
She stopped - I heard her voice so full and sad,
The haunting voice heard by Ulysses' fleet.
'If you would walk with me
blow out the light.'
(7/17/95. Packed with cliche, sorry. I do know this though: if you want to see the stars, you must stand in darkness.)
God
find me
how long must the sparrow fall
how far must the sheep wander
how lonely must the soul become
the tomb was empty
where are you hidden
I am lost
in looking for you.
(8/3/95-- I know what it means to pray without ceasing. I set the poem above to my own arrangement for solo voice of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings and sang it in July 2010, quite unaccountably, to the sweet souls who attend Wednesday night prayer meeting at my church. As I am not a strong singer, this was a double-dose of discomfort for these gentle people, especially as the arrangement runs about seven minutes.)
twelve dozen dead flies
on a windowsill
in the silent nursery
at my father-in-law's church
once danced against the glass
in worship of the sun -
one still does -
I open.
the window
(8/3/95. My father-in-law, Ron Johns, preached at Etna Baptist Church, outside Ithaca, NY, a church of about twenty people, no children. After service one Sunday, I made my way into the shut up old nursery, thick with dust and cobwebs and heat. The windowsill was littered with a black layer of dead cluster flies....and one still alive, buzzing against the glass.)
fishing-hole
papa you are sad
yes
why
there are no fish
I catch fish
you catch minnows
?
when I was your age I caught big fish here
a minnow is big to me
yes
are you crying papa
(8/3/95...For many Christians, the central question is whether or not to obey God's voice. But for some, the question is whether or not that voice is really God's. Paul Tillich speaks of this quandary in relation to the story of Abraham and Isaac. Even memory can deceive us, as this poem was meant to show. The pastor at my church has said several times that God is at the foundation of every line of study. To a large extent, I agree. But beneath even that is epistemology. How do we know and how do we know that we know?)
One Dolt Responds to "The Fascination of What's Difficult"*
Must you disparage so the Toiling Herd
Who knowing naught of Flight dismiss the Fall
Your darling colt complains? You think: too small
The stable for high Things - I am a bird.
Of course the Plowhorse chides your braying Fit -
He breaks his back - you seem to balk the bit.
But I know the search that in your Soul stirred -
The dazzling Fascination of the sun,
The fiery Difficulty of Maud Gonne,
The stable-Child: hope's soft and tragic Word.
Don't blame the Common - walk the burdened road -
With Wax and fifty Feathers lift their load
Singing that Song you think your Pony heard.
* I was enrolled now in graduate work at SUNY Cortland. Though I like much of W.B.Yeats' work, one particular poem got under my skin. This poem is the result.
(10/11/95)
The Lost Sheep Mourns the Shepherd
(I wrote this poem as the final project of a graduate course on Milton in lieu of a typical research paper. It is essentially the same poem in spirit as the "God find me..." poem I'd written in August. This poem follows the conventions of pastoral elegy, in the style of Milton, and as a deep-hearted response to Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, and especially to Lycidas. Only a very long-suffering reader would ever uncover the tremendous amount of methodical thought and historical reference and wordplay I tried to pack into this poem, or notice the figures of Milton/Samson and Martin Luther, so I will just present it as a failed effort which still means a great deal to me today. Noralin Masselink, the Milton scholar who taught that course, thought the poem was a success. I have fond memories of writing most of this poem in the Cortland Public Library, in a room where local artists had put their paintings on display. Unlike Milton who used blank verse, I made up a very complicated triple-rhyme scheme for my elegy...a,a,b,c,c,b,d,d,c,e,e,d....I don't know what possessed me to do such a thing, as it makes for some convoluted phrasing in the hands of this subpar writer. I sometimes recite this poem when mopping the church gym floor. This is why one should avoid going there Saturday nights.)
On Hesperus -- whose volant Eye
Now claims my Wilderness -- rely
Those faded hopes my Foldless soul
Regurgitates. To Aaron's Rod
May grief aspire ? this Sterile sod 5
Bring forth the Laurel crown ? No goal
Triumphant guides my wayward feet
Nor City gold nor gold-paved Street --
For weary Love this Mount I trod.
Fair star -- am I to weep alone -- 10
My baleful bleating softly moan
That Absence Omnipresent ? Sweet
Soliloquy -- to Naught my prayer
And Naught am I but dread Despair
And writhing Woe -- true Joy has flown 15
Away, the Shepherd disappeared --
My Shepherd who so gently sheared
Those tangled Doubts from me. Oh where
That Shepherd's Voice who Mercy sung
Upon my blemished soul ? Begun : 20
The soul's Dark Night -- Dread Dark -- long Feared
Though by Fear long Denied.
This elegy, what Grace may guide ?
My graceless mind Absurdly sprung
With Melancholy undertones 25
Compels Thalia to the throne --
Pastoral reigning : Comic tied.
Remember him, the Good Shepherd
Whose gentle loving Voice bestirred
Devotion in my brittle bones. 30
On verdant Fields we Danced when first
From Pristine Sleep glad Morning burst
Night's curtained Face and every bird
Trilled lissome Lays, grateful to Dawn's
Resplendent Gift. Beside lush Lawns 35
The gelid water quenched my thirst
And wading waters cooled my feet --
In Meadows wide he bid me eat
Choice Legumes, Grains, and Grasses grown
Before my enemies. He played 40
His piping Cheer until Dawn strayed
Past prime -- then Sorrow dropped. Repeat
That hateful hour ? from sleep I waked
To find my Shepherd gone -- all Ached
Within. No Fallacy to tell 45
How Evergreens in anguish Fell
Nor how the Pastures heaving quaked
In Sorrow for my tragic Loss
Since Tears with trembling Visions gloss
Indifferent Nature's Mundane Shell. 50
How cold the Heart : how cold the Rain --
Innocence chants the best Refrain
But Experience writes the Verse.
How drear was that desperate morning March --
Through Foreign Fields began the search 55
For him I loved -- Unsure if Slain
Or never Known but dreamed him Known.
On an Elm branch high -- lying prone --
A Lion from his lichened Perch
Descried my tear-stained Fleece and purred 60
Lightheartedly. His joy inferred
The Shepherd : trembling to Atone
Myself I hailed the pilose Beast
Who bid my Lamentations ceased
As though that power mine. In words 65
Commanding he reproached entire
My forlorn Heresy. With Ire
A Nazarite approached the Feast --
That auburn Eater rent apart
By strong limbs Bare, by written Art 70
Destroyed. My epigone -- desire
That foul Beast -- Convention -- who with
Treacherous error lies beneath
Thanatopsis ? Let Reason chart
Your Willful Woe -- this Wilderness 75
Navigate, forsaking lifeless
Detractors of Life -- whose late death
May yet translucent Sweetness yield.
He led me to a Grassy Field
Clover inmixed and me addressed 80
In Tone Authorial -- Behold
How Fallen Good confounded folds
Confusion in her Arms, Revealed
By Contrast now. But Reason burns
Contagion's Blast, the soul's fleshed Urn 85
Impales -- then Paralyzed Will, lulled
Long, Atonement may Choose.
Certainty makes Glad the heart whose
Joy -- with confidence -- overturns
Contemplative Sorrow, as lambs 90
Unnerved hasten to milk their dams.
The Nazarite five Foxes loosed
Upon the Field -- with cords secure
Firebrands to Tails affixed. With Pure
Bright flame Reason's agents ran 95
Unbid -- the destruction was outrageous --
Consuming equally both Grass
And Clover. My Good Shepherd dear
By Thoughtful Intellect unfound --
Still gone and now the Wasted ground 100
Distorted throws the feet. Alas --
But how the Fallen Senses rage
Without command. And none assuage
Their thirsting. No Scarlet Thread found
Nor Right path blazed, but all Things turned 105
To Ash. How late the lesson learned --
Reason must pay the Senses' Wage
While still they roam. Let inner Light
Above the Senses reign -- by sight
Within, the Shepherd is discerned 110
In consonance. My eyes go Blind
To Temporal caress -- the Mind
Unburdened Sees -- Hail Holy Light!
To him Triumphant Anthems raise
Throughout Eternity! His praise 115
Was cut short by a Bold-Faced Priest behind
Him, who walked in swain's low garb, with Nail
And Rock a closed Door to assail
And ninety-five would leave to save
The one, however lost it be. 120
He spoke to him who Blind could See
My Shepherd's precious Face. How fails
The westered star, my epigone,
And grievous Wolves of Works condone
The Truth with Fancy mixed. Now we 125
Their Edifice shall fix -- by Faith
Alone their Work reduce that safe
The Will might Choose. I felt my own
Confusion lift, unknown -- as now --
The Terror of their Plan -- for how 130
Might unsupported Will vouchsafe
Reunion's Joy ? The Priest held fast
The Nazarite and led him past
The late scorched Fields to higher ground
Where massive Twin Pillars upheld 135
A Vaulted Roof over a Fold
Of Congested Flocks -- Overcast
With misplaced hope. The Nazarite
Put his mighty hands on the Upright
Bars -- one named Reason the other called 140
Fancy -- with a clear Conscience, apart
The Pillars pressed. What dreadful Art
Could topple such a Place where light
Abundant seemed ? Fancied Reason --
Reasoned Fancy -- all Joys are won 145
Through these, save those where Simple Hearts
In Life's short Moment find Delight :
That nymph whom Zephyr loved, the white
Anemone -- red Trillium --
Hepatica, whose blue eye first 150
Beneath the still-dead Black Oak burst
Through winter's frozen Night --
Fair Fawn Lily -- the Columbine --
Sweet Lady's Slipper in her Pine-
Boughed, needle-strewn Bed -- the leaf-nursed 155
White Bloodroot -- bright Butterflyweed,
Who bears a Nectared torch -- Milkweed --
Blue Chicory -- climbing Woodbine,
To Morning Glory close -- the late
Viewed Goldenrod where Mantes wait 160
At season's End for winter feed --
The shy Evening-Primrose who hides
Herself in Night's Array beside
The Fairy Smoke. All these locate
Delight in Life -- Unseen they die 165
And die Content. Unfeeling Eye!
Unfolded still my tearful cry
In mournful Cadence falls. Where side
My Will ? how find my Shepherd's way ?
To fierce Convention's foul decay 170
I wearily returned in my
Distress and found the Foretold Sweet
Of Truth reborn of Error's meat.
Parousia -- or Memory?
Was that Soft Breeze the Shepherd's sound 175
Or my Echoed desire ? Around
This Barren Mountain will I meet
With Mercy's Face ? My only plot :
To Grace as though still Graced. It's not
For Lost to Find but to be Found. 180
(12/4/95)
December Twenty-Nine
Ten years tonight since fire destroyed our home
And like Aeneas I have wandered far
And find -- searching heavens for Heaven's star --
All roads to Carthage turn, and not to Rome.
(12/23/95-- When I was fifteen, our house burned down four days after Christmas. Virgil's Aeneid deserves a wider audience.)
Overlooking Virgil
Though laughter fills his face at every turn
Along the storm-struck interstate, my boy
Is tired: I see an old man’s weariness
Within his youthful eyes, as if his soul 4
Reflects no little portion of my form
And something of my inner turbulence.
He looks at me with sure, admiring looks --
The boy much loves so much not worth his love -- 8
And asks me when I think the rain will end.
An earnest question simply put. And yet
It throws awry my careful guarded thoughts.
The rain? I look into the darkening sky 12
Where shuddering clouds hang low and thunder pounds
In broken chords, a terrible dissonance;
Where unsteady wind blows directionless,
Tearing old leaves from limbs, old limbs from trees, 16
Old trees from where as seed they kissed the earth.
And over all, bright shocks of lightening charge
And randomly discharge.
(Fall 1996. I abandoned this attempt at narrative verse in favor of a prose version I will post later. I love line eight and wish I always wrote with such felicity. The story is a retelling of the Aeneas/Dido story in Virgil's Aeneid. At the time I was writing, I lived on a hill overlooking Virgil, NY, where the story was to be set.)
No comments:
Post a Comment