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Here thy very manhood steals from human ken: .... The Way My Ideas Think Me (Jose Garcia Villa) is a playful and familia

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With Christian Eyes

Tag Archives: Poems CHRISTIAN, CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTMAS, CHURCH, FAITH, HOLIDAYS, JESUS, POEMS, POETRY, RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

Christian (Christmas) Poems X: Shaw, Auden, Eliot DECEMBER 23, 2012 | VICKI | LEAVE A COMMENT

(https://withchristianeyes.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/christian-christmas-poems-x-shaw-audeneliot/657685-sotck-xchng-juliaf/)MARY’S SONG By LUCI SHAW Blue homespun and the bend of my breast keep warm this small hot naked star fallen to my arms. (Rest . . . you who have had so far to come.) Now nearness satisfies the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies whose vigour hurled a universe. He sleeps whose eyelids have not closed before. His breath (so slight it seems no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps to sprout a world. Charmed by dove’s voices, the whisper of straw, he dreams, hearing no music from his other spheres. Breath, mouth, ears, eyes he is curtailed who overflowed all skies, all years. Older than eternity, now he is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed to my poor planet, caught that I might be free, blind in my womb to know my darkness ended, brought to this birth for me to be new-born, and for him to see me mended I must see him torn. In The Poetic Bible, C Duriez ed. (Hendrickson Pub.s 2001), 113. ___________

AT THE MANGER MARY SINGS By W.H. AUDEN O shut your bright eyes that mine must endanger With their watchfulness; protected by its shade Escape from my care: what can you discover From my tender look but how to be afraid? Love can but confirm the more it would deny. Close your bright eye. Sleep. What have you learned from the womb that bore you But an anxiety your Father cannot feel? Sleep. What will the flesh that I gave do for you, Or my mother love, but tempt you from his will? Why was I chosen to teach his Son to weep? Little One, sleep. Dream. In human dreams earth ascends to Heaven Where no one need pray nor ever feel alone. In your first few hours of life here, O have you Chosen already what death must be your own? How soon will you start on the Sorrowful Way? Dream while you may. In The Poetic Bible, C Duriez ed. (Hendrickson Pub.s 2001), 112. ___________

JOURNEY OF THE MAGI By T.S. ELIOT ‘A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.’ And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, And the silken girls bringing sherbet. Then the camel men cursing and grumbling and running away, and wanting their liquor and women, And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters, And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly And the villages dirty and charging high prices: A hard time we had of it. At the end we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, saying That this was all folly. Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kiking the empty wine-skins. But there was no information, and so we continued And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death. In The One Year Book of Poetry, P Comfort and D Partner, compilers (Tyndale House Pub.s 1999), December 28 & 29. ANGEL AUDEN BLESSINGS CHRISTIAN CHRISTMAS ELIOT CHRISTIAN, CHRISTIANITY, FAITH, JESUS, POEMS, POETRY, RELIGION

JESUS

POEMS

POETRY

SHAW

Christian Poems IX: Hopkins, Herbert, Milton OCTOBER 30, 2012 | VICKI | LEAVE A COMMENT

(https://withchristianeyes.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/957763_37483106-costi-at-sxc-hu.jpg) Dry roots (photo by costi, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/957763 (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/957763)).

Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord By Gerard Manley Hopkins Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavor end? Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust Do in spare house more thrive than I that spend, Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes Now, leaved how thick! laced they are again With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes Them; birds build–but not I build; no, but strain, Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine, O thou lord of life, sen my roots rain. In The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, WH Gardner and NH MacKenzie, ed.s (Oxford Univ Press 1967), 106-107. ___________

Denial By George Herbert [Note: The original poem has various justifications that could not be reproduced here, which does take away from the poem a bit, in my view, so the reader may want to find a printed version of this.] When my devotions could not pierce Thy silent ears; Then was my heart broken, as was my verse; My breast was full of fears, And disorder. My bent thoughts, like a brittle bow, Did fly asunder: Each took his way; some would to pleasure go, Some to the wars and thunder Of alarms. As good go anywhere, they say As to benumb Both knees and heart, in crying night and day, Come, come, my God, O come, But no hearing. O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue To cry to thee, And then not hear it crying! all day long My heart was in my knee, But no hearing. Therefore my soul lay out of sight, Untuned, unstrung; My feeble spirit, unable to look right, Like a nipped blossom, hung Discontented. O cheer and tune my heartless breast, Defer no time; That so thy favours granting my request, They and my mind may chime, And mend my rhyme. In A Book of Religious Verse, H Gardner, ed. (Oxford Univ Press 1972), 124-125. ___________

When I Consider How My Light Is Spent By John Milton When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith My Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; “Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?” I [foolishly] ask; but Patience to prevent That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o’er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.” In The One Year Book of Poetry, P Comfort and D Partner, ed.s (Tyndale House Pub.s 1999), May 16 page. CHRISTIAN DEVOTIONAL GEORGE HERBERT MILTON POEMS POETRY CHRISTIAN, JESUS, POEMS, POETRY, RELIGION

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

INSPIRATION

JOHN

Christian Poems VIII: Nicholson, Aquinas, Priest SEPTEMBER 25, 2012 | VICKI | LEAVE A COMMENT

(https://withchristianeyes.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/1397939_24543122-saavem-sxc-hu.jpg) Graveyard crosses (by saavem, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1397939 (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1397939)).

The Burning Bush by Norman Nicholson When Moses, musing in the desert, found The thorn bush spiking up from the hot ground, And saw the branches on a sudden bear The crackling yellow barberries of fire, He searched his learning and imagination For any logical, neat explanation, And turned to go, but turned again and stayed And faced the fire and knew it for his God. I too have seen the briar alight like coal, The love that burns, the flesh that’s ever whole, And many times have turned and left it there, Saying: “It’s prophecy–but metaphor.” But stinging tongues like John the Baptist shout: “That this is metaphor is no way out. It’s dogma too, or you make God a liar; The bush is still a bush, and fire is a fire.” In The Earth is the Lord’s: Poems of the Spirit, H. PLotz, ed. (Thomas Y. Crowell Co. 1965), 57.

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“Adoro te supplex, lateens deitas” (beginning stanzas) by Thomas Aquinas Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art. Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived; How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed; What God’s Son has told me, take for true I do; Truth himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true. On the cross thy godhead made no sign to men; Here thy very manhood steals from human ken: Both are my confession, both are my belief, And I pray the prayer of the dying thief. In The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, W.H. Gardner and N.H. MacKenzie, ed.s (Oxford Univ. Press 1967); Hopkins had translated this Aquinas poem.

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You Wait by Victoria Priest God abounds, is all around; His love for me endures. But I, up in the air then on the ground; Smitten now, but later all demurs; Oh love! How foul am I! Your love abounds, is all around; You yet wait for my return. AGNOSITIC CHRISTIAN FAITH GOD JESUS NORMAN NICHOLSON AQUINAS TRUTH CHRISTIAN, CHRISTIANITY, JESUS, POEMS, POETRY, RELIGION

POEMS

POETRY

THOMAS

Christian Poems VII: Donne, Herbert SEPTEMBER 17, 2012 | VICKI | LEAVE A COMMENT

(https://withchristianeyes.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/p1010558-2.jpg) Heart aflame (Vicki Priest).

HOLY SONNETS (vi) By John Donne (1572 – 1631) Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for, you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new. I, like an usurped town, to another due, Labour to admit you, but O, to no end. Reason, your viceroy to me, me should defend, But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, But am beroth’d unto your enemy: Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. In The Oxford Book of Christian Verse. D. Cecil, ed. (Clarendon Press 1940), p 87. ___________

LOVE II By George Herbert (1593 – 1633) Immortal Heat, O let they greater flame Attract the lesser to it: Let those fires, Which shall consume the world, first make it tame, And kindle in our hearts such true desires, As may consume our lusts, and make thee way. Then shall our hearts pant [for] thee; then shall our brain All her inventions on thine Altar lay, And there in hymns send back thy fire again. Our eyes shall see thee, which before saw dust; Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blind: Thou shalt recover all they goods in kind, Who wert disseized by usurping lust: All knees shall bow to thee, all wits shall rise, And praise him who did make and mend our eyes. In The One Year Book of Poetry. P. Comfort and D Partner, ed.s (Tyndale House Pub.s 1999), Feb. 14. __________

“BUT ART THOU COME, DEAR SAVIOR?” By Anonymous But art Thou come, dear Saviour? hath Thy love Thus made Thee stoop, and leave Thy throne above Thy lofty heavens, and thus Thyself to dress In dust to visit mortals? Could no less A condescension serve? and after all The mean reception of a cratch and stall? Dear Lord, I’ll fetch Thee thence! I have a room (‘Tis poor, but ’tis my best) if Thou wilt come Within so small a cell, where I would fain Mine and the world’s Redeemer entertain, I mean, my heart: ’tis sluttish, I confess, And will not mend Thy lodging, Lord, unless Thou send before Thy harbinger, I mean Thy pure and purging Grace, to make it clean And sweep its nasty corners; then I’ll try to wash it also with a weeping eye. And when ’tis swept and wash’d, I then will go And, with Thy leave, I’ll fetch some flowers that grow In Thine own garden, Faith and Love, to Thee; With these I’ll dress it up, and these shall be My rosemary and bays. Yet when my best Is done, the room’s not fit for such a guest. But here’s the cure; Thy presence, Lord, alone Will make a stall a court, a cratch a throne. In The Oxford Book of Christian Verse. D. Cecil, ed. (Clarendon Press 1940), pp 260-261. BEAUTY CHRISTIAN GEORGE HERBERT GOD IS GOOD JESUS JOHN DONNE POEMS CHRISTIAN, CHRISTIANITY, JESUS, POEMS, POETRY, RELIGION, STUDENT HELPS, THEOLOGY

POETRY

“The Way My Ideas Think Me:” An Explanation SEPTEMBER 5, 2012 | VICKI | 4 COMMENTS The Way My Ideas Think Me (Jose Garcia Villa) is a playful and familiar (as opposed to formal in a religious sense) poem that may mask the seriousness of the subject matter. The first stanza presents a difficulty, a problem, the tension. The second stanza is fun, as if the author is in a playland; the third stanza flows from it – though something is getting serious enough for the author to become angry. The fourth stanza presents action to relieve the earlier presented—and the building—tension. Some specifics are below each stanza (these are my current and concise thoughts on the poem, without influence from other literary critics). The way my ideas think me Is the way I unthink God. As in the name of heaven I make hell That is the way the Lord says me. This stanza, and poem, would be easier if the author seemed to be saying that he makes his own life hell, but he says he makes hell “in the name of heaven.” How would you be making your own life hell “in the name of heaven”? When we do something in someone else’s name, it’s outward – in witness, in action with someone or something else. The author, then, seems to be saying that his ideas are contrary to God – he “unthinks” God with his incorrect notions of God and His will – and he witnesses or puts into action those incorrect notions. These actions can push people toward hell more than toward God; they can make life worse for everyone involved instead of better. The author hears from God, however, letting him know of his false and detrimental ways. And all is adventure and danger And I roll Him off cliffs and mountains But fast as I am to push Him off Fast am I to reach Him below. But now we have this fun stuff. Well, is making hell in the name of heaven serious, or not? The life of the Christian can certainly seem like a dangerous adventure, and I think the author is simply stating this in attractive terms so that we’ll pay attention. He isn’t talking missions trips, however. Maybe the author thinks it’s challenging and maybe a bit fun to see how far he can go with God – how much “on the edge” activities he can do (sinning or border-line behavior)—without losing Him. After all, he pushes God away. The author is “on top” or up high, and he pushes God down. However, he doesn’t actually want to get rid of God, but quickly reaches back to Him. And it may be then His turn to push me off, I wait breathless for that terrible second: And if He push me not, I turn around in anger: “O art thou the God I would have!” The author recognizes his behavior and wants acknowledgment from God – that He’s around and that He’s going to give guidance – also that He has the righteous authority to do so. If He isn’t such a God, what’s the point? What is the point of life without a God who is good, moral, has authority in these matters, and has the ultimate capacity to teach, guide and judge? If you keep on going down the wrong road, would you rather God left you alone, or that He intervened – as a loving parent would? The author recognizes that there should be consequences to our actions – he waits for God to push him off the mountain. Then he pushes me and I plunge down, down! And when He comes to help me up I put my arms around Him, saying, “Brother, Brother.” . . . This is the way we are. God is there for the author–he’s not alone. God pushes him off the high place (perhaps that he made for himself), but afterwards God also extends His hand and gets the author back up on his feet. He is so glad to have such a friend, such a God. With all his foibles and human delusions (like thinking we can do stuff on our own and be our own king of the mountain) he can still depend on his Lord, and even delight in him as “brother.” And who is our “brother” but the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us to be adopted into God’s family? We can sin and make mistakes, but Jesus will never leave us if we continue to seek Him. CHRISTIAN JESUS JOSE GARCIA VILLA LITERATURE GOD CHRISTIAN, CHRISTIANITY, JESUS, POEMS, POETRY, RELIGION

POEMS

POETRY

REVIEW

STUDENT HELPS

UNTHINK

Christian Poems VI: Carson, Schnackenberg AUGUST 23, 2012 | VICKI | LEAVE A COMMENT

(https://withchristianeyes.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/1155282_57784484-jelega-stock-xchng.jpg) Jupiter image (jelega at stock.xchng, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1155282 (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1155282))

[I WONDER] By D.A. Carson I understand that matter can be changed To energy; that maths can integrate The complex quantum jumps that must relate The fusion of the stars to history’s page. I understand that God in every age Is Lord of all; that matter can’t dictate; That stars and quarks and all things intricate Perform his word—including fool and sage. But knowing God is not to know like God; And science is a quest in infancy. Still more: transcendence took on flesh and blood— I do not understand how this can be. The more my mind assesses what it can, The more it learns the finitude of man. In The Poetic Bible, C Duriez, ed. (Scribner Poetry 1997), 180. __________

SUPERNATURAL LOVE By Gjertrud Schnackenberg My father at the dictionary-stand Touches the page to fully understand The lamplit answer, tilting in his hand His slowly scanning magnifying lens A blurry, glistening circle he suspends Above the word “Carnation.” Then he bends So near his eyes are magnified and blurred, One finger on the miniature word, As if he touched a single key and heard A distant, plucked, infinitesimal string, “The obligation due to every thing That’s smaller than the universe.” I bring My sewing needle close enough that I Can watch my father through the needle’s eye, As through a lens ground for a butterfly Who peers down flower-hallways toward a room Shadowed and fathomed as this study’s gloom Where, as a scholar bends above a tomb To read what’s buried there, he bends to pore Over the Latin blossom. I am four, I spill my pins and needles on the floor Trying to stitch “Beloved” X by X. My dangerous, bright needle’s point connects Myself illiterate to this perfect text I cannot read. My father puzzles why It is my habit to identify Carnations as “Christ’s flowers,” knowing I Can give no explanation but “Because.” Word-roots blossom in speechless messages The way the thread behind my sampler does Where following each X I awkward move My needle through the word whose root is love. He reads, “A pink variety of Clove, Carnatio, the Latin, meaning flesh.” As if the bud’s essential oils brush Christ’s fragrance through the room, the iron-fresh Odor carnations have floats up to me, A drifted, secret, bitter ecstasy, The stems squeak in my scissors, Child, it’s me, He turns the page to “Clove” and reads aloud: “The clove, a spice, dried from a flower-bud.” Then twice, as if he hasn’t understood, He reads, “From French, for clou, meaning a nail.” He gazes, motionless. “Meaning a nail.” The incarnation blossoms, flesh and nail, I twist my threads like stems into a knot And smooth “Beloved,” but my needle caught Within the threads, Thy blood so dearly bought, The needle strikes my finger to the bone. I lift my hand, it is myself I’ve sewn, The flesh laid bare, the threads of blood my own, I lift my hand in startled agony And call upon his name, “Daddy daddy”— My father’s hand touches the injury As lightly as he touched the page before, Where incarnation bloomed from roots that bore The flowers I called Christ’s when I was four. In The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, JD McClatchy ed. (Vintage Books 1990), 535-537. BEAUTY CARSON CHILD CHRISTIAN JESUS BLESSINGS, CHRISTIANITY, GOD IS GOOD, POEMS

POEMS

POETRY

SCHNACKENBERG

SCIENCE

SOUL

Christian Poems V: Levertov, Halpern AUGUST 18, 2012 | VICKI | LEAVE A COMMENT

INTRUSION By Denise Levertov After I had cut off my hands and grown new ones something my former hands had longed for came and asked to be rocked. After my plucked out eyes had withered, and new ones grown something my former eyes had wept for came asking to be pitied. In The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, JD McClatchy ed. (Vintage Books 1990), 191. ___________

(https://withchristianeyes.files.wordpress.com/20 12/08/1291969_92785652-two-hands-1-sxchu.jpg) By Doc at Stock.xchang (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1291969 (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1291969))

HER BODY (parts 1 & 4) By Daniel Halpern 1. The Fingers They are small enough to find and care for a tiny stone. To lift it with wobbly concentration from the ground, from the family of stones, up past the pursed mouth— for this we are thankful—to a place level with her eyes to take a close look, a look into the nature of stone. Like everything, it is for the first time: first stone, chilly cube of ice, soft rise of warm flesh, hard surface of table leg, first and lasting scent of grass rubbed between the tiny pincer fingers. And there is the smallest finger poking the air, pointing toward the first heat of the single sun, pointing toward the friendly angels who sent her, letting them know contact’s made. 4. The Soul Who knows how they get here, beyond the obvious. Who packaged the code that provided the slate for her eyes, and what about the workmanship that went into the fingers allowing such intricate movement just months from the other side?— Who placed with such exactness the minute nails on each of the ten unpainted toes? And what remains beyond eye and ear, the thing most deeply rooted in her body— the thing that endlessly blossoms but doesn’t age, in time shows greater vitality? The thing unlike the body that so quickly reaches its highest moment only to begin, with little hesitation, the long roll back, slowing all the way until movement is administered by devices other than those devised by divine design? The ageless thing we call soul, like air, both resident and owner of the body’s estate. But her soul, only partially unpackaged, sings through the slate that guards it, contacts those of us waiting here with a splay of its soft, scrutinizing fingers. Her soul is a sapling thing, something green, dew-damp but resolute, entering this world with an angel’s thumb pressed to her unformed body at the very last, a template affixed to her body when they decided it was time to let her go, for her to come to us and their good work was done. An angel’s thumbprint, a signature, her soul. In The Best American Poetry 1997, J Tate ed. (Scribner Poetry 1997), 91-94. ANGEL BABY BEAUTY BLESSINGS CHRISTIANITY, JESUS, POEMS, RELIGION

CHRISTIAN

HALPERN

LEVERTOV

POEMS

POETRY

SOUL

Christian Poems IV: For Simone Weil AUGUST 11, 2012 | VICKI | 6 COMMENTS

(https://withchristianeyes.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/1387466_88380137-gronvik.jpg)

LOVE III George Herbert Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked anything. A guest, I answered, worthy to be here. Love said, “You shall be he.” I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, “Who made the eyes but I?” Truth Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame Go where it doth deserve. “And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?” My dear, then I will serve. “You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.” So I did sit and eat. . In A Book of Religious Verse, H Gardner, ed. (Oxford Univ Press 1972), 132. ___________

Simone Weil (1909-1943) Vicki Priest (This poem is included in the 2014 anthology, The Chorus, compiled and translated into Korean by Aeire Choi. Poems are in both Korean and English. The Chorus is a truly beautiful book of spiritual poetry, and well made [it’s heavy!]. Available through Aladin (http://www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduct.aspx?ISBN=1195367317).) God is pure beauty. The longing To love the beauty of the world in A human being is essentially The longing for the Incarnation. What we love is perfect joy itself. It is not in our power to travel In a vertical direction. Christ Himself came down and took possession Of me. I was able to rise above this Wretched flesh, to leave it to suffer by itself. Something stronger than I was Compelled me to go down on my knees. It is not my business to think about Myself. My business is to think about God. Only obedience is invulnerable for all time. I always believed that the instant Of death is the center and object of life. Every time I think of the crucifixion Of Christ I commit the sin of envy. The future is still to be feared. The danger is not in the soul’s doubt that There is bread, but, by a lie, to persuade itself It is not hungry. Christ is our bread. If one Turns aside from him to go toward the truth, One will not go far before falling into his arms. . This “poem” consists of quotes by Simone Weil. ___________

IN MEMORIAM Alfred, Lord Tennyson Love is and was my lord and king, And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring. Love is and was my king and lord, And will be, though as yet I keep Within the court on earth, and sleep Encompassed by his faithful guard, And hear at times a sentinel Who moves about from place to place, And whispers to the worlds of space, In the deep of night, that all is well. . In The One Year Book of Poetry, P Comfort & D Partner, ed.s (Tyndale House Pub.s 1999), “Feb. 11” page. BEAUTY CHRISTIAN GEORGE HERBERT CHRISTIANITY, JESUS, POEMS

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SIMONE WEIL

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Christian Poems III: Dillard/Prishvin, Paterson, Dickinson AUGUST 2, 2012 | VICKI | LEAVE A COMMENT

(https://withchristianeyes.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/103490_1354-ethanw1.jpg) Water and ripples (from ethanw @ stck.xchng).

DASH IT Arranged by Annie Dillard from Mikhail Prishvin, Nature’s Diary, 1925 How wonderfully it was all arranged that each Of us had not too long to live. This is one Of the main snags—the shortness of the day. The whole wood was whispering, “Dash it, dash it . . .” What joy—to walk along that path! The snow Was so fragrant in the sun! What a fish! Whenever I think of death, the same stupid Question arises: “What’s to be done?” As for myself, I can only speak of what Made me marvel when I saw it for the first time. I remember my own youth when I was in love. I remember a puddle rippling, the insects aroused. I remember our own springtime when my lady told me: You have taken my best. And then I remember How many evenings I have waited, how much I have been through for this one evening on earth. In Mornings Like This: Found Poems. Annie Dillard (Harper Perennial, 1996), 1. ___________

EXILE Evangeline Paterson Yes, it is a beautiful country, the streams in the winding valley, the knows and the birches, and beautiful the mountain’s bare shoulder and the calm brows of the hills, but it is not my country, and in my heart there is a hollow place always. And there is no way to go back— maybe the miles indeed, but the years never. Winding are the roads that we choose, and inexorable is life, driving us, it seems, like cattle farther and farther away from what we remember. But when we shall come at last to God, who is our Home and Country, there will be no more road stretching before us and no more need to go back. In The Poetic Bible, collected by C Duriez (Hendrickson Pub.s 2001), 184). ___________

MY COCOON TIGHTENS, COLORS TEASE by Emily Dickinson My cocoon tightens, colors tease, I’m feeling for the air; A dim capacity for wings Demeans the dress I wear. A power of butterfly must be The aptitude to fly, Meadows of majesty concedes And easy sweeps the sky. So I must baffle at the hint And cipher at the sign, And make much blunder, if at last I take the clue divine. In Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson. RN Linscott, ed (Doubleday 1959), 175. BEAUTY CHRISTIAN POEMS POETRY CHRISTIANITY, GOD IS GOOD, JESUS, POEMS

Christian Poems II: Villa, Wilbur, Priest JULY 26, 2012 | VICKI | LEAVE A COMMENT

The Way My Ideas Think Me Jose Garcia Villa (1965 or earlier) . The way my ideas think me Is the way I unthink God. As in the name of heaven I make hell That is the way the Lord says me. And all is adventure and danger And I roll Him off cliffs and mountains But fast as I am to push Him off Fast am I to reach Him below. And it may be then His turn to push me off, I wait breathless for that terrible second: And if He push me not, I turn around in anger: “O art thou the God I would have!” Then he pushes me and I plunge down, down! And when He comes to help me up I put my arms around Him, saying, “Brother, Brother.” . . . This is the way we are. Source: The Earth is the Lord’s: Poems of the Spirit, H Plotz, compiler (Oxford Univ Press 1971), 124-125. _________

Hamlen Brook Richard Wilbur . At the alder-darkened brink Where the stream slows to a lucid jet I lean to the water, dinting its top with sweat, And see, before I can drink, A startled inchling trout Of spotted near-transparency, Trawling a shadow solider than he. He swerves now, darting out To where, in a flicked slew Of sparks and glittering silt, he weaves Through stream-bed rocks, disturbing foundered leaves, And butts then out of view Beneath a sliding glass Crazed by the skimming of a brace Of burnished dragon-flies across its face, In which deep cloudlets pass And a white precipice Of mirrored birch-trees plunges down Toward where the azures of the zenith drown. How shall I drink in this? Joy’s trick is to supply Dry lips with what can cool and slake, Leaving them dumbstruck also with an ache Nothing can satisfy. Source: The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, JD McClatchy, ed (Vintage Books 1990), 142. ________

You Beckoned Vicki Priest (Note: imagine every other line indented; I couldn’t get it to format that way here.) . You beckoned, even teased with that roar and Crash of booming surf, untamed power— To my heart all mystery and fear. All from You swirling, pushing the tiniest of particles, Even uncountable molecules in one roiling mass Toward the shore, and there spray and mist Found my cheek, as if to commune. Such a light, longing Touch cannot be put away. Neither could my ears muffle What seemed torrential tears. I could not yet understand. But through universe observing that made me feel like death, It came upon me to listen to You through a singing voice; You spoke love—like no other. So I came to understand, That that ominous, constant roar is like my longing (and that of all Creation) for fruition, full; and It is Your affirming shout: “It is done, you shall see, come and dance with Me!” CHRISTIAN

CHRISTIANITY

GOD IS GOOD

JESUS

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