On Favors

In American culture (and, to my knowledge, to a greater extent in Asian cultures) it is polite to refuse offers. Whether it's the last cookie or a ride home, offers are routinely declined with gracious "No thank you"s. Certainly it's fine to accept these things if someone offers it, but it is polite to decline.

Perhaps we are afraid of inconveniencing the giver, perhaps we just don't want the burden of feeling indebted to someone, or perhaps it's just a habitual reaction. Whatever the reason, it seems strange that it is polite to make offers, but impolite to decline them.

My thesis: it is honorable and right to accept the small daily gifts of others. Accepting offers helps cultivate a habit of giving in the one making the offer. The more someone's gifts are joyfully received, the more they will want to give in the future.

If we reject an offer, we are subliminally suggesting that the offer was not welcome, or we are at least slowly training the giver not to give. Just like in training a child, encouragement of a behavior will create that habit, discouragement will create a habit of the opposite behavior.

Just a thought.

Haiku

a dying man not dying but
(not) falling asleep but,
waking up

Some AlmostHaiku

Portrait of a Soul Mover 11/23/11
I. διδάσκαλος
a man
balding and bespectacled
his brain laden like a gold flecked river
his words whispering light
through his fingers sketching truth
on the wide blackboard
and Wise.

II. καλλός
a woman
heart-rendingly fragile and
fear-mendingly still, solid, serene
a piece of nature as fresh and old
as the breath that forms her form
or light that frames her frame
and Beautiful.

III. γέροντας
a man
alone among the rows of dirt he forges
his feet falling in the rhythm
of the tread of his mule,
man and beast, one with the land
bringing forth bread for the feast
and Old.

IV. μητέρα
a woman
ringed with joy and love
crowned with age and peace,
her love, travel-worn but unwearied
made rich by the trust of her children
that ring her round
and Dear.

Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene 8/29/2011
a
leaf
pauses
while crossing
the sidewalk and
glances at the clouds,
dense with dark austerity.
knitted gray brows glare back.

the leaf

hurries on.
a storm is coming

October

October 10/11/2011
Sun struck boughs cast last leaves
leaving slowly and reluctantly
as cold skies shun tree-hung green that time
turns to shimmering gold shaken over the old:
an alchemist's dream.

On Technology and Sorcery

I've been working over the past couple years on an argument for God by mystery (arguing that all things are supernatural by analogy with gravity and magnetism), but it is still scattered in various pages of notes. Until then, here are some thoughts on the miraculous. As with most of my posts (but especially with this one), I should say that many of these thoughts are not mine. I must thank my Petra education for most of the material here.

First, a quote from G.K. Chesterton (out of a book that I have regrettably not yet read.)

All the terms used in the science books, 'law,' 'necessity,' 'order,' 'tendency,' and so on, are really unintellectual .... The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, 'charm,' 'spell,' 'enchantment.' They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched. I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic.
—Orthodoxy, Chapter IV: The Ethics of Elfland, 1909

As usual, Chesterton's point is powerfully put. Why should the common be commonplace? Why is it any more rational that water should flow down than up? Is it a scientific fact that our planet is warmed by a great levitating ball of fire, or is it part of the setting of a great Story-teller? or both? Where does science end and science fiction begin? We have become so accustomed to water turning into wine slowly that it seems impossible that it should happen instantly. How obvious it seems that water should turn into ice or even vanish into thin air, but absurd that it should turn into blood. A levitating helicopter, commonplace; but a levitating person, miraculous. What is the line between mirrors and magic, between technology and sorcery, or between tornadoes and tempests? Need we draw one at all?

A possible objection to viewing natural acts as magic is an appeal to science: That which happens commonly can be explained by natural causes; that which can't be explained (e.g. gravity, quantum mechanics) simply hasn't been explained yet. Essentially, it's not levitation if you can see the wires.
However, is a magic trick any less miraculous because the magician holds a wand through which the magic passes? Our scientific analysis of the natural world is merely a conduit for the miracles we observe daily. Is a seed becoming an oak tree any less miraculous because it's made of cells that grow? Isn't it equally miraculous that cells can clone themselves? "Explaining" the miracle of plant growth no more takes away its miraculous nature than listing the ingredients in a loaf of bread un-bakes or un-kneads the dough.

In a similar vein...

Power Point 9/19/2011
The little man up front bounces
foot to foot
waves an outstretched arm
followed by rows of squinted eyes,
small beside the great curtain
he points.

Instantly ink splashes and runs
down
into words
on the screen spelling

"Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions."
One step too far.
The professor casts his shadow on the screen.
A glimpse of the cunning device in his hand.
The students still stare in silence.

And on again,
he casts revelations
on the screen
once more.

But the wonder is the
glaze in our eyes
and the unapplauded sound
of the tired tip tap
of the worn brown shoes up front.

Fun with Linguistics

We are currently studying phonetics in my Linguistics class, which has made me wonderfully aware of the types of sounds I use in my poetry. The class gave me the idea to write a poem using only fricative consonants (and the occasional glide or liquid). Fricatives are consonants that are formed by almost completely closing the vocal tract, leaving air to escape through a small gap (i.e. f, v, s, z, h, th as in thigh, th as in thy, and the s sound in measure). This turned out to be more difficult that I envisioned, and so this next composition is not really poetry (unless loosely defined); but hopefully it will at least be a fun read (especially out loud). I might also try to write a poem using only forward sounds (bilabial, labiodental, and dental consonants along with front vowels.) I think these will be good exercises in poetic sound use for future poems.

Fricative Fish Fillet 9/10/2011
the chef fries fish with flour,
fuses this with these or those,
his sauce froths, seethes, sizzles
as he sifts five full fifths of flavor
(saves half, hashes half)
through the haze of fizzes and hisses
as he chefs and shifts, he says "hush"
and finishes it.

Optimism

where the only flight is dance 9/7/2011
The sky drops rain
water-bearing weary,
the sound of dripping
ground gives dull reply.
the clouds sun-shielding
bounce it back
the sunlight stuck sky high.

To think that one world up
atop the clouds
the sun still wishes well
with warming glances
bringing bright
above the rain
where no one dances.

And sometimes when it rains
I think that if
I fling a song at heaven
I'd have a chance
to break the clouds and
bring some heaven down to earth
where the only flight is dance.

The Lord's Table

Caveat: In this poem I am not saying that the way my church (and many other churches) performs communion is wrong; what I am saying is in the poem.

Thoughts on Attending Mass 9/5/2011
next on the program:
distribution of communion,
take a bit of his blood
and pass it on,
a thousand little cups
for a thousand members
around the Table

one cup per soul
gets it done
a little of Christ
for everyone

Is it one cup that we drink?
One for each?
Or one for all?

the Church is one
for Christ is one
he is here in the bread
he is here in the wine

and this is how we drink the cup
as one
the blood of Christ and the germs of our neighbor
as one
not at all safe, not at all clean but
as one.

Let Beauty...

I've only written a few poems in the past couple months, and I think it shows in this abstract, non-concrete poem. They have generally been about this topic, largely inspired by last year's rhetoric class.

Let Beauty 8/22/2011
Let beauty bow to nothing but the builder,
Exquisite form to nothing but the former.
Let light bend only to the gilder,
Gilding light to make it all the warmer.

Let beauty bend not even to itself.
Let beauty not surrender to itself.

For often the abundant soon turns common,
Turning common into commonplace.

Let beauty not give way to plenty.
Let love evoke eternal eyes
To view the gentle ever gently
Like Signor Benedick, new baptized.

Let pure sight see purely,
And love behold the lovely.

Let the wonderful be seen with wonder,
And love declare the lovely.

Let beauty not give way to prevalence,
And so belie the lovely.
Let beauty not surrender to itself,
But love reveal the lovely.

Approach of Spring

This next poem was written in the style and form of a William Carlos Williams poem called the Approach of Winter with a sort of "Mad Gab" technique. Here's the original:

Approach of Winter by William Carlos Williams
The half-stripped trees
struck by a wind together,
bending all,
the leaves flutter drily
and refuse to let go
or driven like hail
stream bitterly out to one side
and fall
where the salvias, hard carmine--
like no leaf that ever was--
edge the bare garden.


And here's my rendition:

Approach of Spring 5/15/2011
The half-risen flowers
squeezed by a force beneath,
extruding green,
the stalks wiggle upward
and burst to drink light
or branch like light
split brightly by a prism
and shine
where the dew, cedar woodchips-
denying any chill that winter left-
crowd the rising blooms.

Summer

Beginning of Summer Holiday 5/22/2011
I cleaned my desk,
the papers stacked and filed,
and in their place
are journals filled with empty pages;
Tolkien rests on top of Plato.

The brown leather shoes are put away,
shelved and empty,
and in their place
are hiking boots,
long laces running to the ground.

My khaki pants hang flat and still,
invisible feet beneath,
and in their place,
blue jeans run to the floor,
my feet beneath them,

standing at the screen door...

Sunrise on a Battlefield

Here's a villanelle written for my creative writing class, which as you may be able to gather from the form, is not that easy to write. :)


Sunrise on a Battlefield 4/25/2011
The daybreak is nearest when grayness is whitest
And the gray rays cast rifles in heaps on the ground;
For shadows are sharpest where light is the brightest.

He grips his gun tightly, his lungs growing tightest
And waits for the sunlight without any sound.
The daybreak is nearest when grayness is whitest,

The ground all around him grows lighter, then lightest
As he waits in the trenches with mud all around,
For shadows are sharpest where light is the brightest.

He closes his eyes and imagines a flight west,
Seeing the dawn out the window, home-bound.
The daybreak is nearest when grayness is whitest,

But sure as the sun in the morning is rightest,
The soldier stands firm for his country and crown.
For shadows are sharpest where light is the brightest.

The sun rises grudgingly, seen by eyes sightless,
And grieved at the unwelcome welcome it's found.

The daybreak is nearest when grayness is whitest,
For shadows are sharpest where light is the brightest.

Rainy Mother's Day Reflections

Rain 5/8/2011
A pregnant cloud releases life upon the earth
And in reply the ground gives leaves and flowers birth,
This rain-gift, heaven's milk, falls a million fold
And warms the earth, though falling clear and cold.
God the Father, here God the Mother, gives life in Spring
By feasting earth and all its life on heaven's drink.

Sonnet 2

We have reached a poetry unit in a creative writing class I'm taking from a Petra teacher. (His blog is here.) This is a Petrarchan sonnet written for the class.

Sonnet 2 4/25/2011
No courtiers will Lady Music stand,
Extolling all her graces with their cooing.
Despite their eloquence and sonnets grand,
Her smallest string sung trill will still their wooing.
With pen and ink they'll set down scores of lines,
Seeking to describe what none has told,
Until the final suitor finally finds
His words too simple, empty, dry, and cold.
For Music carries scents like mountain flowers
Mixed with breezes in the mountain streams
That pool and rush through warm and sunny bowers.
But fickle and fierce she soon will glow and gleam
With fearsome passion sending lightning showers
Breaking cliffs and hearts to wake us from our dreams.

Focus

A fitting poem to have written in February.

Endurance 2/28/2011
Sometimes I watch the busy and
charging legs like windmills
as if the little plant
he carries means to kill
him but he doesn't stop to
set it down or takeabreath
feet like pistons hammer through
the dirt striking hard facing death
with life with
out fear.

I could be that six-legged ant:
footholds firm, winged in my career
across the pebbled weeks and days, plant
in hand with
out fear,
if I tried.


My first attempt at an acrostic poem, written during study hall, became very ironic:

Focus 1/1/2011
For ten seconds, if you could focus
On what you're doing
Could you
Use your time and not
Stop to write a useless, ugly poem.

Death Removes

Over the weekend, our 15 year old Labrador died. She was getting old so it wasn't altogether unexpected, but it was quite sad. Here are a couple poems about it. The title of the first one is an excerpt from a poem by Robert Frost called "Out, Out--" which has a similar, though importantly different theme. Also, we are reading E. E. Cummings in Literature class and I thought his style was fitting for the ideas of the second one. For those unfamiliar with this more visual style (as I am), it may look random, but every space and parenthesis does have one or more purposes. Some general guidelines to help with interpretation:
I use the letters "ed" as a symbol for death, not only as a final suffix but also as an ending that indicates the past tense, or finality.
In the first stanza, I describe how God first moved. In each stanza, watch for what it is that death removes.
Also, in each poem, "till" is used to refer to creation of life or potential for life (in terms of tilling the ground), in addition to its possible grammatical meaning of "until."

"since they were not the one dead--" 4/4/11
With what our dead dog
doesn't fill we hill
an island of dirt (untilled)
ringed by (soon not)dead grass.

And since winter
stings some unsprung ere spring
we walk whence we walked
and switch to
Black Sunday shoes
joining the living
singing spring.


e(n)d 4/4/11
In t he
(pre-beginning
was void un
moved) be
ginning God
moved, b(r)e
the(d)irt (un
moved)
till the dirt
moved.
th en(d e)
ath re
mov(e d)

Stand we
a
round the grave
a
million miles
a
part

(not) lifethoughts
of hikes and summers
shar ed
only shorthoughts
of liver worm squirms.

death
re mov ed.

Re-wind

Re-wind 3/30/2011
When all unwound my bobbin be
And every Fate should say "Enough."
When Clotho should turn weaving-weary,
And Atropos call her bluff,

When I am spent and all is done,
Then let the gift of Sunday's power,
That in the tomb unwound the Son,
So too unwind me in my hour,

And let my thread be wound anew
To fill the spools of those I knew.

Snowball

I wrote this poem about a month ago and debated for a while whether or not to post it. My Board of Poetry Approval (Rachel) liked it and thought it was time for a poem that was understandable without an explanation, so here it is. We recently read Gerard Manley Hopkins in Literature and I've made a few attempts to mirror his style with simple topics. Here's a taste of the beauty of Hopkins:

The Windhover
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

--

In this poem I was also trying to imitate that effect in movies where the camera will slow almost to a still frame, then fast forward for a second before going back to slow motion. I kind of feel bad posting this on the same page as Hopkins, but here you go.

Snowball 2/25/2011
arm
swings
curled fingers cast fast crushed flakes
white glow winged snow warms slow
while whirling white from curling flight, unfurling light as
it
flies
round, spurns snowground churns low, no sound
but just dusts the dirt with bits of almostbird
hits
white cloud. flight route, bright now
white ice flies twice: one hand, two lands,
stops.

One Plan

One Plan 3/21/2011

The world spins
some more in its universal moon-trailed career
and all around, oblivious, the stars and moons
and constellations do silent battle in the clear
and bitter war of gods as big as spoons
(little and big), the might of man instills no fear
or awe when met with worlds the shape and size of doom.

The world spins
and moves a man a million miles more than he had
feet to carry him, rusty-knuckled kneeling down
in dirt as heavy as his heavy head (no crown)
wrapped in the planet's dusty arms, weak as a lad's.

The world spins,
wearing weary circles in no(every)thing
like itself, round and round,
all one making,
but blind to the circle itself, until the
One (re)makes all.

And on the world spins.

Haiti

I just got back from an incredible trip to Haiti with some of my family and youth group where we connected with a friend of ours who is a long-term missionary there. We organized a Bible camp for the kids and painted the mission house where we stayed. A group of nurses for New York came down at the same time as us and set up a clinic for the Haitian children. Overall, it was an incredible time seeing children I hadn't seen since I was there nearly three years, growing in my faith, and bonding with my youth group. I made several attempts to capture the experience in poetry, all of which failed. These are two that came closest.


To a Haitian Child 3/15/2011
If I had the world
would I give it to your heart
that loves your family more that gold
and country more than birth?

If I had the world
would I put it in your hands
that know that feel of want and dirt
better far than frigid, metal coins?

If I had the world
would I teach it to your mind
that you might think that
lies come easier than death?

If I had the world
would I give it to your belly
groaning for stones no longer stones
and bread no longer bread?

If I had the world
would I give it to you?
And
I have the world
to you.


Reflections on My Trip To Haiti 3/17/2011
They tell you not to drink the water.
It might affect you.
It might get down in your veins,
make you sick with a fever,
take your breath away.

So I drank from a bottle of water clean as home.

I drank from a bottle as I ran
with barefoot children
playing soccer.

I drank from a bottle as I asked
the name of every child
begging in the streets.

I drank from a bottle as I talked
with Mackensie caring for orphaned siblings and
going to school.

I drank from a bottle as I looked
at the boy with white lumps on his head
smiling from the street.

I drank from a bottle as I played
Simon Says with thirty dirty children
bouncing in glee.

If you go to Haiti, drink the water.
It might affect you.
It might get down in your heart,
make you sick with compassion,
take your breath away.

I've been busy

Why I Haven't Posted Recently 2/14/2011
The feeling when you step, then
trip, tip and topple, tilting
forward flinging feet
forward falcon-fast
er forward
just to
keep from
falling
flat
(on the floor.)

Made of Wood

I wasn't going to post this one, but Rachel wanted me to... :)

Made of Wood 1/20/11
I have a violin with a one piece back.
They told me that's the nice kind,
the kind with a one piece back.

My old fiddle
had
a
line
down the middle,

like the place where
wal lpaper lines up

And when the light shines in
you can see a piece of yellow paper
stuck to the back
of the
one piece back.

You could shine the light in
my old one too, but you had to hold it right,
to see the piece of yellow paper
stuck to the back
of the
two piece back.

And it's true,
they didn't sound the same,

But

maybe that was just because of how the light
was shining through my fingers on the strings.

Wedding

Christmas provided ample material for poetry writing, but alas, the end of two (too) busy weeks found me with only fragments of forgotten inspiration. I had an idea for a poem that personified humanity as a beggar limping into a stable on Christmas Eve, then dancing his way out of the stable the next morning. I also had an idea for a poem that compared the extended family that visits over the holidays with the "extended family of God" that fills the congregation Christmas Eve, following themes of a richer, fuller community. Perhaps I'll finish them eventually, perhaps not. In the mean time, here's one about a wedding I saw. Warning: the main level on which this poem operates is not the standard metaphorical wedding between Christ and his Church. If read in this way, confusion may occur.

Wedding 1/4/2011
Bones wrapped in sweaty skin
itch at a tie too tight
at the end of a row of men in suits.
A million wooden pews away
white feet wait in whiter shoes.

For three days and nights (it seems)
she walks and
the world stands and waits
the world waits
and waits.

A thousand helpless, smiling souls await
the light, stage-ascending;
no one breaths for joy and
Fear
can such a light remain undimmed
by the darkness all around?

Then the white unites with
steadfast patience standing there,
adding strength to holy, precious love

the One Creator
creating one
greater than the ones
that once were only
ones

and after all
fear is gone
and after
all is joy
the wedding feast awaits.