Tuesday August 1 — “here come the stars”
Yesterday, I wrote the account of my travel home from vacation for two soul friends who live in Detroit. It turned into a card honoring St. Ignatius whose feast day was yesterday. I sent it to 4 or 5 other friends. This morning, it has become a journal entry for the first day of my work year, a good way to frame Robert Frost’s wonderful celebration of stars in today’s poem.
The Badger Ferry 4 hours — mid-summer heavens
Just home yesterday from 7 days on the Waupaca Chain of Lakes, a place of stillness and beauty for sjs, dedicated to play and rest, and beauty, built by a couple of smart Jesuit lay brothers c. 1896. That’s normal late July fare for me. But this year! I came home to Detroit by way of a bucket-list-perfect surprise. I took the Badger Lake Michigan Ferry (4 hours across, from Manitowoc to Ludington) on the 1:30 am run. Almost no sleep, because I sat on the top deck in the wind and cold that the middle of the big lake offers, wind and cold and stars, millions with v little ground light, maybe 6 shooting stars. I just let myself be mesmerized and very gradually began to taste the dawn out in the east. Under those stars, I thanked the summer break for nourishing me and, using the Lakota Prayer of the Six Directions, turned toward the new work year.
Waupaca, Sunset Lake seen from the 1896 veranda porch c. 50 ft above the water.
Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses. Welcome to 2017-18.
john sj
Today’s Post Robert Frost
“The Literate Farmers and the Planet Venus”
Here come the stars to character the skies,
And they in the estimation of the wise
Are more divine than any bulb or arc,
Because their purpose is to flash and spark,
But not to take away the precious dark.
We need the interruption of the night
To ease attention off when overtight,
To break our logic in too long a flight,
And ask us if our premises are right
Robert Frost, 1874 – 1963
