Exploring the Connections

At the Galleria

TONY HOAGLAND

Just past the bin of pastel baby socks and underwear,
there are some 49-dollar Chinese-made TVs;

One of them singing news about a far-off war,
one comparing the breast size of an actress

from Hollywood to the breast size
of an actress from Bollywood.

And here is my niece Lucinda
who is nine and a daughter of Texas

who has developed the flounce of a pedigreed blonde
and declares that her favorite sport is shopping.

Today is the day she embarks upon her journey,
swinging a credit card like a scythe

through the meadows of golden merchandise.
Today is the day she stops looking at faces,

and starts assessing the price of purses;
So let it begin. Let her be dipped in the dazzling bounty

and raised and wrung out again and again.
And let us watch.

As the gods in olden stories
turned mortals into laurel trees and crows
                                        to teach them some kind of lesson,

So we were turned into Americans
to learn something about loneliness.

~~Tony Hoagland. Unincorporated Persons in The Late Honda Dynasty (Greywolf Press, 2010)

Paul of Tarsus

STEPHEN MITCHELL

Stepping from the clear air of the gospel
into your mind,
I found myself hemmed in, darkened,
struggling for my natural breath.
Yes, Brother, I know
what you glimpsed on the road to Damascus:
the sense of boundless freedom
that shot, electric, through every
nerve of your body, and all
the strictures of Thou Shalt Not
gave way, the dead weight of authority
lifted, and your only duty
was to the law
written in your inmost heart.
You were born again. But with
the bloody remains of your former
self smeared over you; ardent
and headstrong as usual, you leapt
from the delivery room table
straight out into the world
to teach the Gentiles your truth.
You left no time for yourself
to remain a child, to grow
inside the kingdom of heaven
slowly and naturally
as a tree grows by the water streams,
then ripens and bears fruit
in its own season; no time
for your dogmatism and intolerance and resentment
to fall away by themselves
letting you shed your guilt
as your old enemy the serpent
sheds his skin. And so
you remained with a past, a future,
and a now caught between them, in which
God-the-Judge kept watching you
through a one-way mirror, darkly.

I would like to arrange a meeting
between you and the true messiah
(you can call him Jesus if you like).
I would have you sit in my back yard
on a perfect day like today
with a continuo of birdsong
and a mild breeze stirring the fig tree.
a fresh-baked sourdough
baguette on the picnic table,
three glasses, and a bottle
of a nice California port.
He might not say a word
of the Good News according to summer.
Perhaps it would be enough
to see him, face to face,
as he sips the wine and hands you
a piece of the bread: take;
eat; this is your body.

Stephen Mitchell. Parables and Portraits (HarperPerennial, 1991

When Someone Deeply Listens To You

by John Fox

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you've had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind's eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your barefeet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

John Fox, Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem Making (J.P. Tarcher, 1997)

Paul of Tarsus

By STEPHEN MITCHELL

Stepping from the clear air of the gospel
into your mind,
I found myself hemmed in, darkened,
struggling for my natural breath.
Yes, Brother, I know
what you glimpsed on the road to Damascus:
the sense of boundless freedom
that shot, electric, through every
nerve in your body, and all
the strictures of Thou Shalt Not
gave way, the dead weight of authority
lifted, and your only duty
was to the law
written in your inmost heart.
You were born again. But with
the bloody remains of your former
self smeared over you; ardent
and headstrong as usual; you leapt
from the delivery room table
straight out into the world
to teach the Gentiles your truth.
You left no time for yourself
to remain a child, to grow
inside the kingdom of heaven
slow and naturally
as a tree grows by the water streams,
then ripens and bears fruit
in its own season; no time
for your dogmatism and intolerance and resentment
to fall away by themselves,
letting you shed your guilt
as your old enemy the serpent
sheds his skin. And so
you remained with a past, a future,
and a now caught between them, in which
God-the-Judge kept watching you
through a one-way mirror, darkly.

I would like to arrange a meeting
between you and the true messiah
(you can call him Jesus if you like).
I would have you sit in my back yard
on a perfect day like today,
with a continuo of birdsong
and a mild breeze stirring the fig tree,
a fresh-baked sourdough
baguette on the picnic table,
three glasses, and a bottle
of a nice California port.
He might not say a word
of the Good News according to summer.
Perhaps it would be enough
to see him, face to face,
as he sips the wine and hands you
a piece of the bread: take;
eat; this is your body.

Stephen Mitchell, Parables and Portraits
(HarperPerennial, 1990), pp. 56-57.

CERTAINTY

Certainty undermines one's power, and turns happiness
                into a long shot. Certainty confines.

    Dears, there is nothing in your vision that will not
        change—especially all your ideas about God.

Look what the insanity of righteous knowledge can do:
                 crusade and maim thousands
               in wanting to convert that which
                            is already gold
                                into gold              

                Certainty can become an illness
                       that creates hate and
                                  greed

                       God once said to Tuka,

                    "Even I am ever changing—
                          I am ever beyond 
                                  Myself,            

        What I once might have put my seal upon,
                        may no longer be
                            the greatest
                                 Truth."

Tukaram (c.1608–c.1649) in Love Poems From God, tr. Daniel Ladinsky (Penguin Compass, 2002)

Hear Me

Hear me, Lord, for I am a sinner, which means I have nothing except prayer.

Protect me from the day of dryness and impotence.

When neither a swallow's flight nor peonies, daffodils and irises in the flower market are a sign of Your glory.

When I will be surrounded by scoffers and unable, against their arguments, to remember any miracle of Yours.

When I will seem an impostor and a swindler because I take part in religious rites.

When I will accuse You of establishing the universal law of death.

When I am ready at last to bow down to nothingness and call life on earth a devil's vaudeville.

                            ~~Czeslaw Milosz (Second Space, HarperCollins, 2002)

   

Tattoo

She knows that being chosen means to choose herself
and seals upon her breasts the Sacred Heart—
a thorn-bound garnet against open lilies,
a pink-and-white ink triptych on her chest.

Every shadow, a creed professed by lines
from votive needles to her deepest cells.
Her body gives life to art, reflects the fade
of dying flesh, and honors God's design.

No second thoughts, she thinks that pain
is easily a choice we make ourselves,
as is admiring her canvas skin
as it ages. Affirmed with words spelled

on a defiant ribbon across her chest,
her blazón: Even the blackest sheep are blessed.

Martha Serpas, Cȏte Blanche
(West Michigan University Press, 2002)

[Thanks, Joan]

Minions of the Moon

MINIONS OF THE MOON

Eerie cries waken me at 5 a.m. in dread. I pad to the window

And scan the street . . . scoured clean by moonlight . . . deserted . . .

Then from behind a car slinks, not the sleek cunning creature

Of fable, but a droop-headed, draggle-tailed, mangy old fox

Which crosses the street back and forth. Seeking what? Food?

A mate? The way home? That's long lost. Though it can't be

Fun to be an ageing scavenger under the bilious urban moon,

The rare morsels all snatched by the young. Baffled, hurt, but

Defiant the cry. It won't be anyone's pet. Autonomy and liberty

To the bitter end. Yes! However starved and disappointed,

Hoard wildness, exercise it . . . roam the lounge at night and cry:

'I am neither as others desire . . . nor what they think me to be.'

~~Michael Foley, Autumn Beguiles the Fatalist (Belfast, N. Ireland: Blackstaff Press)

Self Portrait

SELF PORTRAIT

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God

or many gods.

I want to know if you belong or

feel abandoned.

If you know despair or can see it in others.

I want to know

if you are prepared to live in the world

with its harsh need

to change you. If you can look back

with firm eyes

saying this is where I stand. I want to know

if you know

how to melt into that fierce heat of living

falling toward

the center of your longing. I want to know

if you are willing

to live, day by day, with the consequence of love

and the bitter

unwanted passion of your sure defeat,

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even

the gods speak of God.

~~David Whyte, Fire in the Earth (Many Rivers Press: 1992)

The Work of Christmas

THE WORK OF CHRISTMAS

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the Kings and Princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost
To heal the broken
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoner
To teach the nations
To bring peace among brothers
To make music in the heart.

— Howard Thurman