Swirl and swarm, the swallows
Fling themselves, they thrust and pary
The air, flee the ramparts, and swim
The crowds in the great square.
I catch a spiral, a rising gyre, and my eye
Follows the dust of the city up,
On a bird’s wings, it flies, skirts
The white-washed minaret, up past the
Gates, and there it meets, on swallows’ tails
The sun’s last rays: earth and
Heaven mingle, whirl-
Still the swallows gyre on-
Losing sense and sight of which
Is which.
Category: Poetry
Noxubee County, MS, Past/Present
This is the line that no-one spans
But for leaving or for passing through-
Going in, only to visist the elderly and to bury the dead,
And none but the dead return to reside.
We thought- speeding by,
At the edge of the land-
What liquid names, such an ooze of memory
Hanging in the air over worn-out prairie
And pine flecked hill
Like something, we said,
Out of a Faulkner novel
(Which, of course, we never read
All the way to the end.)
Said the bird to the thorn tree
There’s nothing left to sing
That virgin is long gone
Cracked skin torn, thrown
Into corners and refuse piles,
And in what I’ve salvaged for a bower-
These few things I remember
We came, riding that escalating wave
The borderland ever reclining
On the haze of the setting sun
It was, then, good land, wild, free, and
Violent in its wealth.
So we were, for a time and a half time,
Violent in the spending.
Then
The world ceased to spread.
So we stopped with it, and for a long while
We needed no more momentum,
Content in our endings.
But things change,
The river wears the chalk bluffs down
Forest reclaims every field,
And grass every grave.
Yet, for all of it,
The river still flows.
The low hills glow in embers
Before the quick winter sun,
And wait for the solstice.
How Much Have We Sinned
Return to us the nights that have been lost to us,
And erase, by your favour, that which has issued from us.
How much we have sinned, yet out of generousity You forgive us;
How much we have erred, yet we still hope for Your good pardon!
Nothing but You have I- You are the recourse of my sorrows
I have been ignorant, and possess nothing but your indulgence.
Were I to have a thousand tongues with which to express
Thanks to You, I would not stop thanking You for a single day.
Abu Madyar, Qasida in Mim
There Are Thorns Everywhere
After this there was much discussion of patience and forbearance. He [Nizam ad-Din Awliya] said: ‘Everyone who bears injury is better than he who can scarcely repress anger, for one must not be bent on retaliation.’ These two lines of poetry came on his blessed tongue:
May God befriend all those who are my foes,
May all who hurt me gain increased repose.
After that he added another couplet:
May all who in my path place thorns from spite
Lead lives that flower like a thornless rose rose.
Then he remarked: ‘If someone puts a thorn in your path and you put a thorn in his, there are thorns everywhere! And he concluded: ‘It is like this among men, that you are straight with those who are straight with you, and crooked to those who are crooked. But among dervishes, it is like this, that you are straight with those who are straight with you, and with the crooked, you are also straight!’
Amir Hasan Sijzi, Morals for the Heart
Even in Darkness
Even in darkness, love
shows the circumference
of the world, lightning
quivering on horizons
in the summer night.
Wendell Berry
Friday Haiku
When the world blossoms
it can never be put back.
How the petals fall!
Teitoku (1570-1653)
She Offered Peace As Also She Had Received Peace
This Virgin came, great and full of holiness, to rejoice with the old sterile one at the novel conception.
Each met the other, the one full of blessings and the daughter of the Levites, boats of treasures from which the whole world was enriched.
Two who brought forth: the One who was announced and the announcer, with the same message full of salvation for the whole world.
The maiden visited her and spoke a luminous greeting in her ears; immediately the enclosed babe was aware and began leaping for joy.
It was beautiful for Mary that she should speak peace, for she sowed peace for those far and near.
She was as a treasure full of peace for all mankind; great peace was hidden in her for those who were at enmity.
She offered peace as also she had recieved peace, from on high, which was for the whole world.
Peace was spoken profusely from her mouth; it was fitting for the blessed one to proclaim it.
Peace was in her womb and with her lips she gave peace, and the babe who heard began cheekily making merry.
The Israelites were given to pleasure in dancing for joy before God, when He is carried about in special places.
King David was dancing before the Ark, and he did not observe the order of royalty because of the great joy of his heart.
St. Jacob of Serug, Homily Concerning the Holy Mother of God, Mary, When She Went to Elizabeth To See The Truth Which Was Told To Her By Gabriel
And Even Peace Will Be Weary And Will Be
Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west,
Latin writing, from west to east.
Languages are like cats:
You must not stroke their hair the wrong way.
The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert,
The trees bend in the wind,
And stones fly from all four winds,
Into all four winds. They throw stones,
Throw this land, one at the other,
But the land always falls back to the land.
They throw the land, want to get rid of it.
Its stones, its soil, but you can’t get rid of it.
They throw stones, throw stones at me
In 1936, 1938, 1948, 1988,
Semites throw at Semites and anti-Semites at anti-Semites,
Evil men throw and just men throw,
Sinners throw and tempters throw,
Geologists throw and theologists throw,
Archaelogists throw and archhooligans throw,
Kidneys throw stones and gall bladders throw,
Head stones and forehead stones and the heart of a stone,
Stones shaped like a screaming mouth
And stones fitting your eyes
Like a pair of glasses,
The past throws stones at the future,
And all of them fall on the present.
Weeping stones and laughing gravel stones,
Even God in the Bible threw stones,
Even the Urim and Tumim were thrown
And got stuck in the beastplate of justice,
And Herod threw stones and what came out was a Temple.
Oh, the poem of stone sadness
Oh, the poem thrown on the stones
Oh, the poem of thrown stones.
Is there in this land
A stone that was never thrown
And never built and never overturned
And never uncovered and never discovered
And never screamed from a wall and never discarded by the builders
And never closed on top of a grave and never lay under lovers
And never turned into a cornerstone?
Please do not throw any more stones,
You are moving the land,
The holy, whole, open land,
You are moving it to the sea
And the sea doesn’t want it
The sea says, not in me.
Please throw little stones,
Throw snail fossils, throw gravel,
Justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tsedek,
Throw soft stones, throw sweet clods,
Throw limestone, throw clay,
Throw sand of the seashore,
Throw dust of the desert, throw rust,
Throw soil, throw wind,
Throw air, throw nothing
Until your hands are weary
And the war is weary
And even peace will be weary and will be.
Yehuda Amichai, Temporary Poem of my Time
This Life Is Not Good But in Danger and in Joy
A discreet householder exclaims on the grandsire
In warpaint and feathers, with fierce grandsons and
axes
Dancing round a backyard fire of boxes:
“Watch grandfather, he’ll set the house on fire.”
But I will unriddle for you the thought of his mind,
An old one you cannot open with conversation.
What animates the thin legs in risky motion?
Mixes the snow on the head with snow in the wind?
“Grandson, grandsire. We are equally boy and boy.
Do not offer your reclining-chair and slippers
With tedious old women talking in wrappers.
This life is not good but in danger and in joy.
“It is you the elder to these and younger to me
Who are penned as slaves by properties and causes
And never walk from your insupportable houses
And shamefully, when boys shout, go in and flee.
“May God forgive me, I know your middling ways,
Having taken care and performed ignominies un-
reckoned
Between the first brief childhood and the brief second,
But I will be more honorable in these days.”
John Crowe Ransom, Old Man Playing With Children
You, Our Lord, Are An Eloquent Word Which Is Full Of Life
O Beneficent One, whose door is open to evil ones and to sinners, grant me to enter and see Your beauty while I marvel.
O treasure of blessings, from which even the unjust are satiated, may I be nourished by You because You are entirely life for him who partakes of You.
Cup which inebriates the soul with its draught, and it forgets its sufferings; may I drink from You, become wise in You, and recite Your story.
O You, who ungrudgingly magnify our unworthy race, my word extols beautiful things with Your psalms.
Son of Greatness, who became a little child, grant my feeble self to speak concerning Your greatness.
Son of the Most High, who wanted to be with earthly beings, may my word be raised on high and speak to You.
You, our Lord, are an eloquent word which is full of life and a great discourse which gives riches to the one who hears it.
Everyone who speaks about You is speaking because of You, since You are word and rational mind and conscience.
Neither the thoughts of the soul stire without You, nor do words move the lips except in You.
Lips give no sound without Your command, nor is there hearing in the ear without Your favour.
Behold, Your riches are lavished on those far and near; Your door is opened for the good and the evil ones to come into You.
Everyone is rich in You, and You are enriching everyone without measure; may my discourse be enriched by You with beauty and may it speak to You.
Son of the Virgin, grant me to speak concerning abour Your mother, while I acknowledge that the word concerning her is too exalted for us.
St. Jacob of Serug, Homily Concerning the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, Mary
*
I recieved the little volume On the Mother of God in the mail today, and have so far only perused into the first few lines of Jacob’s first homily in the collection. It is beautiful, stirring stuff, like so much else in the Syrian Orthodox tradition- it’s a shame that so little of this tradition ever makes it onto the radar screen of people in the rest of Christendom; apart from St. Ephrem the Syrian, and to a somewhat lesser extent, St. Isaac of Nineveh, “Oriental Orthodoxy” is pretty invisible in the West. Of course, ancient and medieval Christianity, East and West, isn’t exactly household knowledge in the West, even among Christians- which is one of the most tragic things about the state of (post)modern Christendom.
The more I read- and re-read- the Fathers and Mothers of the ancient and medieval Church the fresher and more relevant they sound, transcending the normal categories of “conservative” and “liberal” theology/culture/politics. They embrace text and image, with no hang-ups about art and beauty; reading St. John of Damascus I thought how incredibly wonderful it is to belong to a Tradition that not only embraces art, but celebrates it and sees in it a sacred connection with the Incarnation of God Himself! But anyway, that’s another topic for another time…
I shall post a couple more excerpts of Jacob’s homilies on our Lady as I work through them. I hope you, good reader, will be encouraged to pursue the rich fount of Syrian Orthodoxy and other Oriental Orthodox traditions; there is much to recieve there.
Thicket & Thorp 