Now and Then

In youth (not to say that I'm out of it yet, though it's getting harder and harder to maintain the facade), it often happens that the things we believe to be true are based on a little experience and a lot of conceit. If we don't know everything by high-school, then we certainly do by college, and parents are fools and authority exists to be questioned. Then, we grow up, and idealism and hope are replaced by cynicism and doubt, and all those starry-eyed liberals suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves walking around in the polished, wing-tip shoes of world-weary conservatives. It does not have to be so. Make no mistake, it is the epitome of naiveté to cling to the high-minded convictions of youth. All too often, they are founded on nothing more than over-excited intellects and narrow-minded views of reality. But, to slip into the disenchantment of adulthood is an equally grave sin. There is, thankfully, a middle ground, where the ideals that once nourished us can be married to the difficult reality that surrounds us. This happy mean can seem, at times, to be unattainable, and, indeed, many never find it. Our mistake, however, is to search for it by ourselves. Alone, we can never hope to reach it; it is only found through others. And what can those others do for us? They can love and they can be loved. This is where the idealism of youth and the realism of adulthood meet. Love without suffering is weak, and suffering without love is unconquerable, but, together, they can forge a happiness which is indescribably better than anything our flawed human intellects could imagine. At this point, I'm sure, you're beginning to question whether I am as distanced from my youth as I believe. All I can say to you is that these things are true, and that if you are unwilling to trust me in this, you will squander your happiness, even if it should be dropped on your doorstep, for when it does come, you will not recognize it for what it is. Love sustains us and love enlivens us, and there is no truer credo than this: the only real happiness we can hope for in this life is found in love.


Now and Then

I once imagined I could see beyond
the surfaces that held the world fast,
a water-weight of knowledge for my bond
and fetter, fitted tightly to the last,

but in my nonage, any scanty sense
was made a fool's wisdom. What is youth,
but seizing on indifferent defense?
To fancy that I contemplated truth

was such a sophomoric disregard,
that, even now, I smile at the thought
of certitude I judged exceeding hard,
but found to be far gentler than not,

and, even now, the axioms I hold
will fall before the truth when I am old.

Babylon

We Americans are living lives of gluttony. We spend more than we have and take more than we need, and then wonder why our banks and manufacturers and governments are failing for lack of wealth. Our lifestyle has far exceeded our abilities, and now we must face the realization that the solution to our economic hardship is not going to come from more spending and more bailouts, but, rather, from frugality. This suffering is not an evil to be suppressed. It is the necessary fruit of our extravagance and the symptom of a much greater sickness, and, until we address that, we shall never recover the state of health and vigor we once possessed.


Babylon

The wild ones of Babylon
are dancing in the street
to strains that scatter fuel on
the fire in their feet.

They caper for a hollow death
and celebrate their sin;
they reckon on a rotten breath
to whisper illness in.

And who are we to crucify
the raptures of the crowd?
When all, alike, are born to die,
then let us die aloud.

This hunger is our happiness;
baptize us not content,
till all the wealth we've born is less
than all the wealth we've spent.

I Wake the Morning

The still and calm of morning is an experience not to be foregone. An early morning makes the days longer, the sunlight brighter, and the nights deeper. It is easy to make a habit of sleeping in, but, thank goodness, my job has me up by 6:30 every day of the week, and I never cease to be grateful for that. The only imperfection I can find in mornings are their brief durations.


I Wake the Morning

I wake the morning to a tribe of birds
who make a merry twittering; a brief
apocalypse of animated words
is overheard from sediment to leaf.

Then, subtly, the sky is on the surge,
the steady march of hours is begun,
and retrograding shadows near the verge
of life and deed and escalating sun.

And where are all my birds, my early friends,
who reveled in the swiftly fading dark?
As others made their leisurely amends,
we restive ones brought closure to the arc.

But now we rise in transitory flight;
your hectic sphere is calmer from a height.

Virgo

At last, the stars are beginning to break through the rain clouds and illuminate the nights. Few scenes are as beautiful as those evenings when the tar-black silhouettes of trees stand stark against a sky of scattered buttermilk clouds and pinprick stars on a navy blue sheet. I could spend - I do spend - a fair amount of time sitting in the dark, watching the night sky. It's a very slow, steady sort of beauty. What could be more reliable than the night? Even if the Sun were to burn out and the Moon to escape the Earth's pull, we would still have the comforting darkness and solitude of night.


Virgo

You tread the courses of the sky,
arrayed about in vestal light
and utter as the arrant night
encompassed in your eye,

so youthful in your starry mien,
and yet as ancient as the gears
that guide the everlasting spheres
you gallivant between,

inscrutable to every soul
but mine alone, when I may bear
your beauty, singularly rare
and singularly whole,

and so we two shall intertwine
the earth and heavens in a wreath
that crowns the slumbering, beneath,
and humbles the divine

and makes, of us, a unity,
as man and oread are wed
to walk the orbits overhead
and anchor in the sea,

where we may find a solitude
untroubled by the taint of grief
and linger in our sweet relief,
unceasingly renewed.

Beloved

In the last several years, I have read quite a bit of modern metrical poetry (if such a dichotomy can be said to exist), and have found in it an unfortunate and almost universal tendency toward gracelessly long line lengths. It is rare enough to find ten syllables per line (though this still manages to hang on in the Shakespearean sonnet), and anything less is almost non-existent. Such wordiness is usually nothing but a crutch. That is, it can be quite difficult to express cogent thoughts in brief lines, and is far easier to let lines tend toward sentence-length, then tack on some quick rhymes at the very end. What is lost in this lengthy-line format, however, is the sense of rhythm and cadence that allows a poem to dance like a leaf on the wind, march like a battalion on parade, or whirl like an elegant waltz. Consequently, most modern metrical poetry has all the finesse of a 12-gauge shotgun. How I wish that we could find our way back to the grace of language we once had.


Beloved

Beloved, consort of my soul,
you bare your heart,
unburdened of its bitter toll
by tender art
that marries, in a perfect whole,
the wanting part.

And in the greater aggregate,
these scarlet cords,
as lithe as fawns, as consummate
as cultured lords,
shall take a taste and pay a debt
that common words

cannot suffice. What interstice
is left unlit?
And what allure of this bliss
could I remit?
I find no former that I miss,
so let them flit

and fly away upon the air
of eras past.
Beloved, what sublime and rare
belief is cast
before us, in an answered prayer
of love, at last.

Migration

The sun has returned, and so have the birds. Every morning, they call out from branch to branch as if it were the first day of creation, which, in a sense, it is. On a separate note, I only recently noticed that, until today, the last post on my blog concerned Ash Wednesday, and the first, Easter. How odd, to see the entirety of Lent encompassed in one little place.


Migration

I never thought that I
was like unto a bird;
my wings are not as spry,
my warble rarely heard,

and though we both escape
our customary nest
when Winter strokes the nape
and clutches at the chest,

my bird will come upon
the turning of the year,
while I am fled and gone
and loath to reappear,

and so I shall abide,
and never bird to be;
he travels as the tide;
I linger in the sea.

If You Were...

It's Easter Vigil, and the long 40 days of Lent have come to an end. I hope you all are looking forward to Easter as much as I am. Tonight begins the happiest celebration of the year, so be well, and I wish you all a joyful Easter season.


If You Were...

If you were as old as a hill
or endlessly deep as a sea,
as rash as a childish will
or stoic and straight as a tree...

If you were as sad as a keen
or vital and quick as a jig,
as fragrant as flourishing green
or sweet as a succulent fig...

If you were as soft as a lamb
or grand as a towering height,
as strong as a sinewy ram
or sultry as tropical night...

If you were the soul of the earth,
it still would not capture me through,
but these cannot measure your worth,
for all things and more are in you.