Poetry Blog: "A Work Day in Hard Times"

Wednesday, October 25 “ . . . Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.”

One of the list’s readers responded to Monday’s post, an all-time favorite from Gerard Manley Hopkins who pretty regularly knocks me flat with wonder. The email contained John Keats’ early 19th century romantic poem without comment. But he reminded me, list readers often do, of a poet I had not noticed for a while. No scolding either, as in “how can you have overlooked Keats’ “To Autumn”! Keats worked on my imagination since the email landed. I’m in his debt. I bet you will be too; a near perfect read for day three of mid-autumn bluster and rain. More than most, I think you will find reading this out loud will capture your imagination.

This Friday will be filled with the university’s October board meeting. Back on Monday.

Have a blest weekend.

john sj

Today’s Post “To Autumn” John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats

Monday, October 23 — “ Summer ends now, now
barbarous in beauty the stooks arise around”

Getting ready for a rainy day — sun rises at 7:55 and sets at 6:37: each day a little shorter and the sun a little lower in the sky, sunrise a little farther to the south. This is a season when how far north or south one lives can get our attention. I love it that we have a large open space in the north east corner of the McNichols Campus and that McNichols Road (aka 6 Mile) makes our northern boundary a true east-west survey line, keyed to 8 Mile road (which dates to the 1789 Northwest Territory survey mapping project). All that makes it easier to locate this campus against the majestic march of sunrise all through the year, and can remind us, too, that Detroit has been around a while. Do I go a little nuts in autumn? Sure do. You?

19th century Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, loved autumn also (see today’s poem just below). Even more than most great poets, GMH rewards investment in the sounds of his language. Best to read out loud, with pauses, several times and, maybe, enjoy the sky? (p.s. “stooks” in line one? “a group of sheaves of grain stood on end in a field.”)

Have a blest day.

john sj

Today’s post — “ Hurrahing in The Harvest”

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?

I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!—

These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.

g m hopkins, sj
July 1844 – June 1889

For me retreat offers stillness and a soft pace for breathing.   One of my neices sent me a new poet, for me that is, Lisa J Starr’s Mad With Yellow was published in 2008.

blessings

john sj

Today’s Post   My Inner Voice Speaks to Me in Mid-October“Listen, dear one,” it whispers.

“You only think you have

forgotten the impossible.

Go now, to that marsh beyond

Fresh Pond and consider how the red

burgeons into crimson.

Go see how it’s been preparing

forever for today. Notice the stirring,

silent beauty of bog;

watch how summer lingers at the door.

Get there as the heron makes its lacy landing

and consider, then, the possibility

that for ten thousand years, that sleek,

white whisper of bird has been waiting for you

to arrive — so it could land just like that,

just then.”

Monday October 16    annual retreat days

If you emailed me this week, you would receive this auto-response message.

“From Sunday Oct 15 until Sunday Oct 22 I will be making my personal retreat in New England.  I will occasional check emails to catch important messages, but for the most part stillness gets my attention.

Time to breathe in and out slowly, almost like reading a poem for 8 days.

Have a blest week.”

john st sj

Today’s Post   Rabindranath Tagore  Gitanjali # 5

I ask for a moment’s indulgence to sit by thy side. The works
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and
the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing
dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.

Tagore,  Gitanjali # 5

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913
Rabindranath Tagore

Wednesday, October 11  in DC National heading to Denver

hi.  I’ve hustled the Metro to the airport getting ready to board for Denver via Minneapolis for Regis University’s Trustee meeting beginning this evening. In place of a usual poem, I want to forward this email from a life long friend, who works with immigrants in the Bronx.  Often when she writes her stories are of hard moments in hard lives, almost always flavored with kindness that often anoints refugee lives.    Today, though,  Gerry turns the weekly trash pick up into hints of beauty, maybe more than hints.

thanks for writing this Gerry.

john sj

ps. Have a blest mid-week October day

> I hesitated to send a word this morning with the fires in California, the loss in Puerto Rico, and the pain of Vegas which weigh heavily on all of us. I decided it important to stay in touch because we need each other.

> Coming to work today , the sky was an artist’s palette of magenta being brushed in huge strokes. I was already on a high when I left the house, you can imagine how I rode up and down the hills.

> Today is Wednesday, wet garbage pick-up in our neighborhood. Given we are 9 adults and 2 children living in community, we create a lot of trash. This morning when I checked the three containers in the kitchen, each one had been changed with new recycle bags. Then out on the street, the bag of cuttings from cooking was ready to be taken. I was IMPRESSED…

> I have grown to appreciate the job of the sanitation people. There are funny moments when I have run after the garbage truck on Saturdays to offer a token of gratitude and tell them how grateful I am for their very hard job, especially picking up all our trash. This has led to our giving thumbs up on some days as we pass each other.

October 9, 2017 –  “drumming the roof, the rain’s
insistent heartbeat”

I’ll be gone all week — Mon-Wed      meeting with Conference of Mercy Higher Education Mission officers in DC.   Wed—>early Sat   Denver for the Trustee meeting at Regis University.   It’s  probable there will be a Wednesday post but none on Friday.   Why do all these early autumn travel days remind me of Denise Levertov’s poem about falling in love as an elderly woman?   The poem is as improbably playful as the leaves riding the wind gusts.

I love the poem,  hope you do too.

Have a good day.

john sj

today’s post

Ancient Airs and Dances

I

I knew too well
what had befallen me
when, one night, I put my lips to his wineglass
after he left–an impulse I thought was locked away with a smile
into memory’s museum.

When he took me to visit friends and the sea, he lay
asleep in the next room’s dark where the fire
rustled all night; and I, from a warm bed, sleepless,
watched through the open door
that glowing hearth, and heard,
drumming the roof, the rain’s
insistent heartbeat.

Greyhaired, I have not grown wiser,
unless to perceive absurdity
is wisdom. A powerless wisdom.

II

Shameless heart! Did you not vow to learn
stillness from the heron
quiet from the mists of fall,
and from the mountain–what was it?
Pride? Remoteness?
You have forgotten already!
And now you clamor again
like an obstinate child demanding attention,
interrupting study and contemplation.
You try my patience. Bound as we are
together for life, must you now,
so late in the day, go bounding sideways,
trying to drag me with you?

Denise Levertov – Evening Train

Friday, October 6, 2017

“One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting their bad advice”

Readers often surprise me with stories about a poem or a poet or self stories about insight and decision.  Sometimes the stories take me back to September 2013 when this list began during some hard times in the city and on campus.  The hard times became an intuition that led to this list, c. 508 posts ago.  The original wording appears at the top of the archive blog where all previous posts appear.  I re-read it now and then to remind me of the origins.  Check it out.  https://sites.udmercy.edu/poetry

Best to read Mary Oliver out loud, with pauses.

Friday morning;  have a blest October weekend.

john sj

Today’s Post “The Journey”

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life that you could save.

Mary Oliver

September 10, 1935

Wednesday, October 4   If Grand River were a river,
Elephants could drink from it
And I would wash my clothes
Among its stones.

With thanks to Rosemary, here is her post from February 26, 2014, a poem by one of Detroit Mercy’s distinguished poet graduates, Al Ward.  Al writes about Grand River Blvd, the southern border of the University neighborhood.  Lots of familiar streets find their place in the poem.  She also explains why our university is home to a National Literary Landmark, a rare distinction nationally.  For the complete list see http://www.ala.org/united/products_services/literarylandmarks/landmarksbyauthor/landmarksbyauthor

Have a good week.  See you Friday.

john sj

Today’s Post “If Grand River Were a River”   (first posted Feb 23, 2015)

This week students submitted their entries for UDM’s annual Dudley Randall Student Poetry Competition. The competition began while Randall was a librarian and poet-in-resident at U of D. He served as its judge for several years—one of the many ways he inspired our student writers.

Those of us who know Randall primarily through his poetry and reputation as a publisher may be unaware of this aspect of his legacy–his extraordinary generosity with and support of poets of all ages and walks of life. Broadside Press’s extensive work with community writers continues this legacy.

In today’s and tomorrow’s posts I would like to share the work of three talented University poets whose work has been supported by Randall and Broadside Press.

The first author, Albert M. Ward, is a University of Detroit alumnus and well-known Detroit poet, activist, and educator. He often speaks of the transformative effect it had on him as a young African American boy to visit Dudley Randall in the public library near his home where Randall worked.

In Ward’s poem, “If Grand River Were A River,” we can hear echoes of Randall’s love of our city. We hear, too, Ward’s own rich, powerful voice taking us somewhere new.

Rosemary Weatherston
Director, Dudley Randall Center for Print Culture

“If Grand River Were A River”

There are no waterfalls on Dexter
But when it rains
The street shimmers like glass
And Oakman Boulevard
Becomes a rainforest,

Blue and transparent
The sky over Dexter
Is bright in summer,
The sun washes the savannahs
And sidewalks in golden hues,
In a barbershop on Dexter
I learned to play checkers.

At Parkman Library
My bicycle was stolen.
Had my African warriors
Been with me,
We would have drummed
On our shields,
Walked through the tall grass
And found my bicycle.

If Grand River were a river,
I would walk along its banks
From village to village,
If Grand River were a river,
Children could dance at water’s edge,
Dances of freedom.

Grandmothers would say,
“Carry these groceries, boys,
One day you’ll make fine young men.”
We’d walk Dexter sometimes
To Elmhurst or Fullerton
Or across Davidson to Clements
And Pasadena,
Had lots of friends on
Ewald Circle and Kendall.
The grandmothers would tell stories
And give us lots of fifty cents.

I remember that summer of “67,
43 people died they said,
A civil disturbance,
Businesses burned on 12th Street,
Houses in Pingree,
Tanks chewed up the alley
Behind the garage of my Aunt Sweet,
Looters running through her backyard
Terror, smoke and ashes,
Not to be denied . . .

If Grand River were a river,
Trees would grow rich and lush
Like baobobs, their roots thick,
If Grand River were a river,
I would be free.

Woodward and the boulevard, market place
Where villagers and neighbors come
To trade, to greet,
I see watercolours of silk
And broadcloths, women
With their bundles walking,
The Elders with their sticks.

Mt. Kilimanjaro is greater
Than the Fisher building
With snow like crystal,
Silver at its crest,
The sun sleeps there
When the moon is round and full,
East or west of Woodward . . . I am home.

If Grand River were a river,
Elephants could drink from it
And I would wash my clothes
Among its stones.

Monday, October 2 “My city is that cup of sunshine. . .”

Professor Fatemeh Keshavarz, University of Maryland’s Roshan Chair of Persian Studies, is a poet and a scholar. In September 2014, she welcomed us into our academic year by reading a poem she wrote a few days before September 11, 2001 — before she or we knew about the 9-11 attacks on New York, Washington DC and a field in western Pennsylvania. This first Monday of October, national news led with a story of a violent mass shooting in Las Vegas. It is hard not to go numb with what feels like a relentless rush of hatred carried out with precise killing weapons. Fatemeh locates that same violence in a vast universe of creative intensity and serenity. If you were not there in 2014, and even if you were, it’s worth reading again (http://danmurano.com/poetry/fatemeh-keshavarz).

Here is another of Fatemeh Keshavarz’s poems. She celebrates Shiraz, her home city in Iran, which has lived as a center for art and beauty for c. 4000 years. Wikipedia tells me that “The oldest sample of wine in the world, dating to approximately 7,000 years ago, was discovered on clay jars recovered outside of Shiraz.”

Detroit is only 316 years old, but I am using the poem to celebrate Motown today. The beauty of taste and the pause that good wine inspires, can help put terror in its much larger context of the human condition over centuries. Lift a glass when you get off work.

Best read “Shiraz” out loud several times, with some pauses. Have a blest week.

John sj

“Shiraz”

Held up to gods
In the palm of a giant’s hands
A rare handcrafted marble cup
Brimming with sunshine
Defined at the outer edges
With tall cypress trees
That line up at dawn reverently
To interpret the horizons
In their meticulous green thoughts
***

My city is
That cup of sunshine
I can drink to the last drop
And be thirsty for more.

Shiraz, Dec. 21, 2000

Friday,
     September 29  “so would I learn to attain
          freefall . . . ”

This Friday begins the university homecoming weekend,  races and games, alums meeting across generations;  September ends with storytelling and singing, with good food and drink.   Most of all, perhaps, with sacred playful  remembering.

This deceptively simple poem teaches me again, as Levertov often does, that simple language can open my soul.

Blessings on these two days.

john sj

The Avowal

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Denise Levertov
b. October 1923  d. December 1997