Dad’s Poetry: Late Snows

 

Late Snows

Robbed of icy strength,
Betrayed by warmth hid
Deep in April’s wind,
These last flurries come

Weeping, fluttering,
Tumbling, they tug at
The sky in clusters
And swirls. Then yearning

To fly, they fall, and
Rush away in shimmering
Streamlets to
Awaken in cold

Earth the hope of spring.

Seashells: A lost arrival…

A friend gave me twenty-six seashells. Each is beautiful, complex, and unique. They are unexpected gifts found in unexpected places to be received, treasured and shared. The twenty-second shell.

Looking back over all the seashells posts this morning, I think I’ve inadvertently traced the shape of the past ten months. I’ve often thought it was a shame that I wasn’t “tracking” the wanderings very well. Archiving the goings on of my life makes it all seem more solid, grounded…and connected. But it seems I have kept track of it all, in a way.

In all of these posts…and in the “archiving” process itself, there’s always a reaching in or a reaching forward — similar to what I find in reading a good story. I search and wonder — sometimes grasp — for integration, personal and intimate involvement, and movement toward that ultimate…oh, what would you call it? Not the moral of the story. Not the purpose of the story. That sounds too functional, as though I could take a good story or the story of my life and bend it to my own whims. Which I suppose is possible, though probably not creative or life-giving. But a good story has a certain drive — it may be strong and loud, or gentle and nearly invisible, but it is a drive toward something. The fullness of its potential for beauty? Eh. Not “potential.” That sounds so…functional. Like motivational self talk. How about….capacity. The drive, or the longing, to find the story’s capacity for beauty? Or increase it?

Hmm.

Whatever it is…it seems the arrival of that something remains on the horizon or in the air like a soft mist that you can barely taste in your mouth. 

A lost arrival is wandering…

Is the wandering arrival what keeps the heart of the creative drive beating with wild strength? It keeps hope alive — hope that the story’s capacity for beauty is endless.
A shell in honor of lost arrivals that wander and keep the desire for beauty alive and kicking.

A lost arrival is wandering…

I woke up this morning with a line from a poem stuck in my head. I wanted to use it for the next shell (which, believe it or not, will actually be posted here sooner, I hope, rather than later), but wanted to give credit where it’s due.

I said it over and over, hoping to get some hint as to whose “voice” would have written it. I kept hearing John O’Donohue, but probably just because I’ve been visiting his words a lot these past few weeks.

My internet search turned up nothing.

Then something clicked…

I pulled a little book off my shelf — A Fragile City, Micheal O’Siahail (my pronunciation of his name is quite pitiful).  I had only read one poem from this particular collection, the first. “Transit.” I had stopped with the intention of soaking up the one poem for a while and just never make it back to the actual book. But I had written one line on the cover of my Moleskine:

Here’s the full poem…very liminal, may I say?

Transit

Urgencies of language: check-in, stand-by, take-off.
Everything apace, businesslike. But I’m happy here
Gazing at all the meetings and farewells. I love
To see those strangers’ faces quickened and bare.
A lost arrival is wandering. A moment on edge,
He pans a lounge for his countersign of welcome.
A flash of greeting, sudden lightening of baggage,
As though he journeyed out only to journey home.
I watch a parting couple in their embrace and freeing.
The woman turns, a Veronica with her handkerchief
Absorbing into herself a last stain of a countenance.
She dissolves in crowds. An aura of her leaving glance
Travels through the yearning air. Tell me we live
For those faces wiped into the folds of our being. 

Happy New Year: For a New Beginning

We’re closer to the new year…but not close enough for a midnight post. So, random thoughts it will be…for now.

I went on a walk today that turned into more of a run. Cast a passing glance at a puddle, more to avoid and ice-cold and wet foot for the remainder of my trotting wander through the neighborhood. Went several yards beyond it before I stopped. Turned around. Took a picture that makes me smile.

For dinner…I ate the best piece of pizza I’ve had in a very long time — made from scratch by my friend Chadwick, eaten among friends around the big dining room table.

Went bowling. It’s funny game, bowling, that begins with the communal experience of terribly uncomfortable neon-laced shoes. Then you find a ball that is neither to heavy nor too light and somehow manage to roll it down the lane, hurling toward a bunch of pins. Try as you might to send the thing off without looking like a complete idiot or falling on your face…you still end up (or, uh…maybe this is just me) wiggling and leaning and twisting your feet in odd directions to steer to ball telepathically toward the pins. I’ve never been very good at these kinds of things, but am apparently better than I thought. I beat the boys :)

It’s hard to follow Tree of Life (the movie) while typing out random thoughts for this blog post. So I will stop typing now…and come back for a New Years’ blessing.

. . .

2012 is upon us. A blessing on this new beginning from John O’Donohue:

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Oh, the beauty of O’Donohue

I’m not sure what it is about John O’Donohue’s writing (and his voice…oh, his voice) that I ache for as a new year approaches, but it’s becoming tradition. One I’m happy to embrace.

He completely oozes this beauty that…has the feel, even the taste, of the land. The words are these beautiful tendrils that reach something in me yet untouched by cynicism and fear…a place of hope. Maybe that’s why I feel such a need for him as a new year begins.

Here are some bits and pieces of beauty worth every tear. If you’re around later tonight, when midnight strikes in West Michigan, watch for another post — I’ll be sharing his blessing “for a new beginning.”

 

Beannacht

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May he clay dance
To balance you.

And When your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the curragh of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
And invisible cloak
To mind your life.

 

If you’d like to hear O’Donohue read this poem, here you go. You are welcome.

If you’d like some visual beauty to accompany the audio, here you go. You owe me one.

Dad’s Poetry: The Light of the Lamp

As the light of the lamp gently dances its dance,
Darkness hides in corners of the room,
High and haughty shadows gravely loom,
Ghostly shrouds of terror fleeing doom.
And the light dances on, and the light sings its song.
And the light of the lamp dances on.

As the light of the lamp bravely dances its dance,
Drawing life from the pure golden mere,
Awful apparitions cringe in fear,
While they glower and threaten and leer.
But the light dances on, and the light sings its song.
And the light of the lamp dances on.

As the light of the lamp boldly dances its dance,
Happy fragrance of hope fills the air,
Sweet perfume of the oil so rare,
Fast dismissing dark knights of despair.
And the light dances on, and the light sings its song.
And the light of the lamp dances on, dances on.
Little light of the lamp dances on.

Soon…

There are some technical difficulties this morning, so I’ll just whet your appetite for now…and give you the goods later.

About once a month, I’ll be posting work from a poet whose work I’ve followed since I was very, very young — my dad. I’ve played around with writing poetry, but it’s one of those things I know that I know that I want to explore more fully. I attribute that desire, at least in part, to Dad’s faithfulness to the craft over the years. He pastors a church and works full-time teaching fourth grade on an Indian Reservation in New Mexico, so the work he has done has been in the midst of a very full life fraught with the tensions of everyday life that we all know and sometimes love, sometimes abhor.

I hear my Dad’s voice (his name is Al, by the way, or Alfred if your into something more formal) in his poetry, of course, but also the voices of the writers I know have shaped his mind: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, John Stott, Francis Schaeffer, and many others. I hear his years of battling illness. I hear his voice rumbling aloud at night, before bed, a story of hobbits and wraiths, the Shire, an eye, and a ring. I hear our shared dream to visit Oxford and walk that hallowed literary ground…and so much more.

I’m looking forward to sharing my dad with you in the coming months.

And…welcome to the blog, Daddy.

The Pain (Christmas 1978)

(Here’s a bit from Eugene Peterson…images of what brings new life. This is beautiful. I don’t now how he does it, but he most certainly does. And he does it well.)

The bawling of babies, always in a way
Inappropriate — why should the loved and innocent
Greet existence with wails?  – proof that not all
Is well. Dreams and deliveries never quite mesh.

Deep hungers go unsatisfied, deep hurts
Unhealed. The natural and gay are torn
By ugly grimace and curse. A wound appears
In the place of ecstasy. Birth is bloody.

All pain’s a prelude: to symphony, to sweetness.
“The pearl began as a pain in the oyster’s stomach.”

Dogwood, recycled from cradle to cross, enters
The market again as a yoke for easing burdens>

Each sword-opened side is the matrix for God
To come to me again through travail for joy.

“This child marks both the failure and the recovery of many in Israel,
A figure misunderstood and contradicted — the pain of a sword thrust through you–
But the rejection will force honesty, as God reveals who they really are.” (Luke 2:34-35) 

Seashells: The best part…

A friend gave me twenty-six seashells. Each is beautiful, complex, and unique. They are unexpected gifts found in unexpected places to be received, treasured and shared. The twenty-first shell.

Nine months it’s been.

Today marks my ninth “monthiversary” (word credit to Seymour) of leaving New Mexico, saying goodbye to my hometown and family, and saying hello to these months of wanderings.

Today is also the eve of Christmas. Tomorrow we celebrate the first very human breath of a life fresh from nine months in the very human womb of a young woman.

A lot happens in nine months.

Here is the hope and expectation of Advent at its height. Bated breath. The insulated silence of the first true snowfall outside the window, there’s a stillness gently breathing beneath the holiday happenings. A suspension of sorts. A pause.

This is the best part.

Behold the Lamb of God

Last year, I discovered Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God (buy the download here…you won’t be sorry). I listened to it advent calendar-style — “opened” one or two songs in the days leading up to Christmas. This landed me on Christmas day with the title cut, “Behold the Lamb of God.”

The album is this perfect progression of story and sound that trails through not just the “Christmas Story,” but a larger segment of the biblical narrative, the exodus thru the birth of Christ. It’s very grounding — ties me into a Story that is easy to lose sight of in the midst of all the dailiness and craziness of the season, a Narrative with an intensity that years of church has dulled. Advent makes me want to be closer to that Story, to hear it with clarity and to be in it in very real ways in the dailiness of my life.

I’m listening though the album the same way this year. And I can breathe…

 

So, yeah…shameless plug for Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God.