My life is all before me

 

art by Hannah Willow

We're all in retreat here at the convent; it's our custom on December 31.   I'm praying and writing and thinking back.

Here's a poem by Richard Hoffman:

December 31st

All my undone actions wander

naked across the calendar,

 

a band of skinny hunter-gatherers,

blown snow scattered here and there,

 

stumbling toward a future

folded in the New Year I secure

 

with a pushpin: January’s picture

a painting from the 17th century,

 

a still life: Skull and mirror,

spilled coin purse and a flower.

 

Richard Hoffman, “December 31st” from Emblem. Copyright © 2011 by Richard Hoffman. Reprinted by permission of Barrow Street Press.

Source: Emblem (Barrow Street Press, 2011)

 

 

art by Childe Hassam

and here's the first stanza of a poem by Martha Collins:

from Grayed In

Snow fallen, another going

gone, new come in, open

the door:

                  each night I grow

young, my friends are well

again, my life is all

before me,

                   each morning

I close a door, another door.

 

So much of any year is flammable

 

Good old Clint Eastwood

Rainy, foggy morning...

Here's a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye:

 

Burning the Old Year

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

 

So much of any year is flammable,   

lists of vegetables, partial poems.   

Orange swirling flame of days,   

so little is a stone.

 

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

 

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   

only the things I didn’t do   

crackle after the blazing dies.

 

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Burning the Old Year” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

art by Graham Eaton

Murder in the Cathedral

 December 29    Feast of Saint Thomas a Becket    

  I will never forget my visit to Canterbury Cathedral in the summer of 1976.  That's where the king's knights murdered him.

and of course , the destination of Chaucer's pilgrims.

Soldiers are still killing pesky bishops in this day; witness Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador.

Makes me also post this comment by Virginia Woolf:

Pictures for the Season

 

Some pictures and art that I love for this Christmas season ( it IS the Christmas season until at least January 6!)

artist:  Lucy Grossmith

and another by Lucy Grossmith:

don't know the artist,  but an English robin in the snow...

and one more 

Artist:  John Swanson August    The Peaceable Kingdom

He did not wait till the world was ready

 

Here's a poem by Madeleine L’Engle:

First Coming

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy he cameto a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

I did not post yesterday; too much going on here.  

The weather is a balmy sunny 55 degrees;  I remember bitter cold, blizzard conditions on some Christmases here in Emmitsburg.

art by David Hollington

O patience beyond patience

 

artist;  Georges de la Tour

Here's a poem by W.S, Merwin:

Eye of Shadow

W.S.Merwin      ***

Sentry of the other side
it may have watched the beginning
without being noticed in all
that blossoming radiance
the beggar in dark rags
down on the threshold
a shadow waiting

in its own fair time
all in its rags it rises
revealing its prime claim
upon the latter day
that fades around it
while the sky is turning
with the whole prophecy
o lengthening dark vision
reaching across the faces
across colors and mountains
and all that is known
or appears to be known
herald without a sound
leave-taking without a word
guide beyond time and knowledge
o patience
beyond patience

I touch the day
I taste the light
I remember

Unfold for me the mystery of grace

O Emmanuel      Artist:  Ansgar Holmberg

Here's a sonnet by Malcolm Guite:

SONNET | O EMMANUEL

O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us, Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.

Sonnet | Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons (Canterbury Press, 2012)

 

The last of the 8 O Antiphons for this year.

To drive the cold winter away

 

Chinian      #901 Skellie Road

Now that it is officially Winter, here are some poems and art works to underscore the season:

Drive The Cold Winter Away (Excerpt)

Anon 17th Century Carol

All hail to the days that merit more praise

Than all the rest of the year,

And welcome the nights that double delights

As well for the poor as the peer!

Good fortune attend each merry man's friend,

That doth but the best that he may;

Forgetting old wrongs, with carols and songs,

To drive the cold winter away.

Let Misery pack, with a whip at his back,

To the deep Tantalian flood;

In Lethe profound let envy be drown'd,

That pines at another man's good;

Let Sorrow's expense be banded from hence,

All payments have greater delay,

We'll spend the long nights in cheerful delights

To drive the cold winter away.

'Tis ill for a mind to anger inclined

To think of small injuries now;

If wrath be to seek do not lend her thy cheek

Nor let her inhabit thy brow.

Cross out of thy books malevolent looks,

Both beauty and youth's decay,

And wholly consort with mirth and with sport

To drive the cold winter away.

Katherine May

and this one, from Emily Dickinson:

The wind tapped like a tired man,

And like a host, 'Come in,'

I boldly answered; entered then

My residence within

A rapid, footless guest,

To offer whom a chair

Were as impossible as hand

A sofa to the air.

No bone had he to bind him,

His speech was like the push

Of numerous humming-birds at once

From a superior bush.

His countenance a billow,

His fingers, if he pass,

Let go a music, as of tunes

Blown tremulous in glass.

He visited, still flitting;

Then, like a timid man,

Again he tapped- 't was flurriedly-

And I became alone.

Emily Dickinson

Lennart Helje

at the wrecked end of the year

 

Solstice Deer

Here is a solstice poem/song from Jethro Tull:

Now is the solstice of the year, winter is the glad song that you hear. Seven maids move in seven time. Have the lads up ready in a line. Ring out these bells. Ring out, ring solstice bells. Ring solstice bells. Join together beneath the mistletoe. by the holy oak whereon it grows. Seven druids dance in seven time. Sing the song the bells call, loudly chiming. Ring out these bells. Ring out, ring solstice bells. Ring solstice bells. Praise be to the distant sister sun, joyful as the silver planets run. Seven maids move in seven time. Sing the song the bells call, loudly chiming. Ring out those bells. Ring out, ring solstice bells. Ring solstice bells. Ring on, ring out. Ring on, ring out.

* The closing quote is from the song "Noon Of The Solstice" by Damh The Bard

and then, this gem from Gerry Cambridge:

What you open, no one can shut

 and what you shut, no one can open.

Day 4 of the O Antiphons:  O Key of David

Artist:  Ansgar Holmburg

Here's a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Moonless Darkness
Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, the Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem-star may lead me
To the sight of Him Who freed me
From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas day.

 

 

When the nights are strong with a darkness long

 

O Root of Jesse     art: Ansgar Holmberg

G.K Chesterton wrote a number of Christmas poems.   Here is one of them:

There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.

Never we know but in sleet and in snow,
The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth a star.

And at night we win to the ancient inn
Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.

The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,
For the flame of the sun is flown,
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,
And a Child comes forth alone.

 

 

Every stone shall cry

 

art by Ansgar Holmburg CSJ

Here's another poem I love from Richard Wilbur, one of my all-time favorite poets;

“A Christmas Hymn” by Richard Wilbur

And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. - St. Luke XIX.39-40

A stable-lamp is lighted
Whose glow shall wake the sky;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
And straw like gold shall shine;
A barn shall harbor heaven,
A stall become a shrine.

This child through David’s city
Shall ride in triumph by;
The palm shall strew its branches,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
Though heavy, dull, and dumb,
And lie within the roadway
To pave his kingdom come.

Yet he shall be forsaken,
And yielded up to die;
The sky shall groan and darken,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
For stony hearts of men:
God’s blood upon the spearhead,
God’s love refused again.

But now, as at the ending,
The low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
In praises of the child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.

O Wisdom

 I love this artists' imagining of the first of the O Antiphons:

Artist:   Ansgar Holmburg CSJ

and this poem - on another subject entirely!   by Scott Cairns:

 

Early Frost

BY SCOTT CAIRNS

This morning the world’s white face reminds us

that life intends to become serious again.

And the same loud birds that all summer long

annoyed us with their high attitudes and chatter

silently line the gibbet of the fence a little stunned,

chastened enough.

 

They look as if they’re waiting for things

to grow worse, but are watching the house,

as if somewhere in their dim memories

they recall something about this abandoned garden

that could save them.

 

The neighbor’s dog has also learned to wake

without exaggeration. And the neighbor himself

has made it to his car with less noise, starting

the small engine with a kind of reverence. At the window

his wife witnesses this bleak tableau, blinking

her eyes, silent.

 

I fill the feeders to the top and cart them

to the tree, hurrying back inside

to leave the morning to these ridiculous

birds, who, reminded, find the rough shelters,

bow, and then feed.

 

 

 

Scott Cairns, “Early Frost” from The Translation of Babel (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1990). Copyright © 1990 by Scott Cairns. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Source: The Translation of Babel (University of Georgia Press, 1990)

He will come like frost

 

The "O" Antiphons start tomorrow!

Here is a poem by Rowan Williams:

Advent Calendar

by Rowan Williams

 

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

 

As far from myself as ever

 

It's actually the winter of my seventy-third year,  but this poem from Merwin works:

In the Winter of My Thirty-Eighth Year

BY W. S. MERWIN

It sounds unconvincing to say When I was young

Though I have long wondered what it would be like

To be me now

No older at all it seems from here

As far from myself as ever

 

Walking in fog and rain and seeing nothing

I imagine all the clocks have died in the night

Now no one is looking I could choose my age

It would be younger I suppose so I am older

It is there at hand I could take it

Except for the things I think I would do differently

They keep coming between they are what I am

They have taught me little I did not know when I was young

 

There is nothing wrong with my age now probably

It is how I have come to it

Like a thing I kept putting off as I did my youth

 

There is nothing the matter with speech

Just because it lent itself

To my uses

 

Of course there is nothing the matter with the stars

It is my emptiness among them

While they drift farther away in the invisible morning

 

W. S. Merwin, "In the Winter of my Thirty-Eighth Year" Copyright © 1993 by W.S. Merwin, reprinted with permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.

and this, from Ceci Turner

 

Winter Trees

BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.