You never forget your first love

I loved Poetry Month. It wasn't long enough for me, but even if I celebrated for all 30 days, it may not have been long enough. I shared with you a favorite or very significant work from each of my favorite poets, with the exception of my own piece, as I am not one of my favorite poets. The John Ciardi was a complete surprise; I stumbled upon it one evening looking for a Rumi, I think, and I was instantly captured by the lyrical truth of it. That's what I really love about poetry: I love the moment when you are captured by truth, and all the better when it is as music.

To cap off Poetry Month 2010, this is the very first poem that ever truly captured me. It has never set me free.

On Reason and Passion

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?


Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.


I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.


Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows -- then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky -- then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."
And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

- Kahlil Gibran

O Captain my Captain

NEEDLES AND PINS

Needles and pins,
Needles and pins,
Sew me a sail
To catch me the wind.

Sew me a sail
Strong as the gale,
Carpenter, bring out your
Hammers and nails.

Hammers and nails,
Hammers and nails,
Build me a boat
To go chasing the whales.

Chasing the whales,
Sailing the blue,
Find a captain
And sign me a crew.

Captain and crew,
Captain and crew,
Take me, oh take me
To anywhere new.

- Shel Silverstein

Brightness

Peaceful, deep in waiting
A Holy Grail full of light and mercy
Inside the chasm of my soul
A quest for love, for eternity
She was so close
She was waiting for me
When she called me, I dared not go
But mysteries beg to reveal themselves
And listening, I opened my eyes to receive
Oh angels have no fear
This road we tread goes ever on
For I know the secret
Lies within this Bride of Christ
And she shall lead us home

(I wrote this on September 15, 2005.)

now I understand

MUSIC

When I was a child
I once sat sobbing on the floor
Beside my mother's piano
As she played and sang
For there was in her singing
A shy yet solemn glory
My smallness could not hold

And when I was asked
Why I was crying
I had no words for it
I only shook my head
And went on crying

Why is it that music
At its most beautiful
Opens a wound in us
An ache a desolation
Deep as a homesickness
For some far-off
And half-forgotten country

I've never understood
Why this is so

But there's an ancient legend
From the other side of the world
That gives away the secret
Of this mysterious sorrow

For centuries on centuries
We have been wandering
But we were made for Paradise
As deer for the forest

And when music comes to us
With its heavenly beauty
It brings us desolation
For when we hear it
We half remember
That lost native country

We dimly remember the fields
Their fragrant windswept clover
The birdsongs in the orchards
The wild white violets in the moss
By the transparent streams

And shining at the heart of it
Is the longed-for beauty
Of the One who waits for us
Who will always wait for us
In those radiant meadows

Yet also came to live with us
And wanders where we wander.

- Anne Porter

Sweet, simple, beautiful

I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
The fragile secret of a flower,
Music, the making of a poem
That gave me heaven for an hour;

First stars above a snowy hill,
Voices of people kindly and wise,
And the great look of love, long hidden,
Found at last in meeting eyes.

I have loved much and been loved deeply --
Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,
Leave me the darkness and the stillness,
I shall be tired and glad to go.

- Sara Teasdale

My favorite of his

Hysteria

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved

in her laughter and being part of it, until her

teeth were only accidental stars with a talent

for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps,

inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally

in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by

the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter

with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading

a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty

green iron table, saying: "If the lady and

gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden,

if the lady and gentleman wish to take their

tea in the garden ..." I decided that if the

shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of

the fragments of the afternoon might be collected,

and I concentrated my attention with careful

subtlety to this end.

-T. S. Eliot

Maybe this is why the caged bird sings ...

PHENOMENAL WOMAN

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care.
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

- Maya Angelou

this was born of my soul inside another, near 800 years ago

Art as Flirtation and Surrender

In your light I learn how to love.

In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,

where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,

and that sight becomes this art.

- Rumi

Indeed.

Men Marry What They Need. I Marry You.

Men marry what they need. I marry you,
morning by morning, day by day, night by night,
and every marriage makes this marriage new.

In the broken name of heaven, in the light
that shatters granite, by the spitting shore,
in air that leaps and wobbles like a kite,

I marry you from time and a great door
is shut and stays shut against wind, sea, stone,
sunburst, and heavenfall. And home once more

inside our walls of skin and struts of bone,
man-woman, woman-man, and each the other,
I marry you by all dark and all dawn

and learn to let time spend. Why should I bother
the flies about me? Let them buzz and do.
Men marry their queen, their daughter, or their mother

by names they prove, but that thin buzz whines through:
when reason falls to reasons, cause is true.
Men marry what they need. I marry you.

- John Ciardi

I heard you but you did not hear me

SONNET 138

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

- William Shakespeare

But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near

To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

- Andrew Marvell

I remember reading this on a warm February night

The Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

- Billy Collins

So it's the 15th of April, and I only just NOW found out that it's Poetry Month?

April is Poetry Month! I will never miss it again.

For fun, and because poetry in one of my very favorite windows into heaven and the soul, I will be sharing some of my recent favorites. I may or may not slip some of my own in as well.

Kidnap Poem

Ever been kidnapped
by a poet
if i were a poet
i'd kidnap you
put you in my phrases and meter

You to jones beach
or maybe coney island
or maybe just to my house
lyric you in lilacs
dash you in the rain
blend into the beach
to complement my see

Play the lyre for you
ode you with my love song
anything to win you
wrap you in the red Black green
show you off to mama
yeah if i were a poet i'd kid
nap you

- Nikki Giovanni

Open Heart

Whether we know it or not
We are all broken
We all have hearts that are broken and need repair
Split and torn, sustaining us in our ruin
We feel it but cannot see it
Until one day when the pieces shatter and the truth is revealed

Only You, God
Only You heal our broken hearts
Come soon come now with your hands strong and warm
Come peel back the layers and bind us again
Seal the leaks and mend the tears
Take our hearts cold and massage them until they burn
Redirect our inner path of life so that You flow within us
And renew us so that we are new
Breathe within us Your true life, O God
For where You wound, You bind and heal again
You will heal us again and again so that no evil can touch us

When we are healed, we are whole
And we will dance and and play and run

On Children

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

- Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"

We must do what we can

Below is a copy of an email sent from Ryan Mobley, pastor of Delta Church:

As you all certainly know, a terrible 7.0 earthquake occurred in Haiti on Tuesday afternoon. Hundreds of thousands of people have died and upwards of 1 million people are homeless. 80% of Haiti's population lives below the poverty line, which makes them the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. By their own admission, they are no where near equipped to handle a disaster like this and are in need of tangible help. Please pray fervently for the people of Haiti and the relief workers. But beyond that, financial gifts are necessary to fund the relief efforts - everything from food, search & rescue, etc. Here are 5 tremendous organizations that you can send a financial gift to (even a small micro-gift of $10 will go a long way):

Baptist Global Response

http://www.baptistglobalresponse.com/new/giving.php

The Red Cross

http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.94aae335470e233f6cf911df43181aa0/?vgnextoid=15c0c5a210826210VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCRD

World Vision

http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10324

Samaritan's Purse

http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/Relief_and_Development/Emergency_Relief/

Compassion International

https://www.compassion.com/contribution/giving/disasterrelief.htm?referer=105910

Additionally, let me emphasize this as well: this is in no way any type of "judgment" from God punishing people. There are misinformed, arrogant, judgmental, non-gospel centered religious people who are saying and believing such things. Do not believe them. Romans 8:22 says "For we we know that the whole creation has been groaning..." The context is the suffering that this life brings because of the terrible effects of sin. The fall (Genesis 3) not only brought death to people, but to all of creation as well. An event like this earthquake is a stark reminder of the brokenness of the world and great need we have for the hope of the gospel to renew not just us, but all of creation. So let us be a people of prayer, a people on mission for the gospel, and a people who do what we can to renew this creation and bring comfort to those who are hurting for the glory of Jesus.