Poetry Blog: "A Work Day in Hard Times"

Monday,  August 7, 2017

These early August work days feel like beginnings to me.  Summer break memories still feel recent.  Perhaps that’s why I turned to this Robert Francis poem a friend sent me early in July.  Line by line hustles with jump-start language — wake me up,  stomp on the porch, make me,  show me,  tell me,  persuade me.   Hints all through of a playful voice looking for my attention.

Have a blest work week, this first 7 day week in August.

john sj

Today’s Post  –  Robert Francis

Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I’m half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I’m not too hard persuaded.

Robert Francis  August 12, 1901 – July 13, 1987

Robert Francis was born in Upland, Pennsylvania, and studied at Harvard. Although he taught at workshops and lectured at universities across the United States, he lived for over sixty years in the same house near Amherst, Massachusetts. His poems are often charmingly whimsical, presenting conundrums and mysteries with a light, lyrical touch, as in these lines from “The Black Hood”: “Thus do I praise duplicity and damn it. / I hate equivocation and I am it.” Robert Frost, an important influence on the poet, said that Francis was “of all the great neglected poets, the greatest.”

Friday, August 4, 2017

Last night my sibs and I all called each other.   Mary called to tell me that Bill’s intimate friend of 60 + years had died on the golf course, a loss for all of us, deeper for Bill, and deeper still because Chuck’s Sue is now left without him.   I tried to reach Bill 3 times with no luck; one or another of his six children were with their dad.  So I called Midge out in Nevada and we talked a while.  Then Midge & Jim’s daughter Terri came walking over from her house next door.  While we talked, I got to thinking of one of Terri’s poems; “flint hard” one poet critic described them.  For me, she’s in the same company with Denise Levertov or W. H. Auden or Joy Harjo.

Finally, I slipped a call in to Bill between his childrens’.  We talked about loss and love.  These conversations were followed by phone time with another soul friend while she drove home after a day with her husband during a long hip surgery.   Such strong family time with loves in my life.  These last days, too, I have listened to four or five deep demanding stories from other close friends whose kinship has been woven into my life for years.  Takes my breath away this Friday morning.

Yes, the wider world requires attention beyond our close joys and griefs and vigils.   The world offers us baseball games, mean violence, grinding poverty and political turmoil.   Worrisome news too of relentless, physically dangerous heat in this country, and places across the planet.    The wide world.

In my work world, this Friday marks the end of the first week after summer time.   During my morning prayer,  while I looked for a strong poem, one from my niece caught my attention.   Perhaps it will catch yours too.

Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses.   Have a blest weekend.

john st sj

Prayers That Mean Something

Grandmother loans out guardian angels.
She is generous with them, always
has an extra.  I suppose she’s been
collecting them, maybe inheriting them,
one every five years or so,
from loved ones gone.

If my need is truly great, she sends two or three, or
one of her best, my grandfather’s
or her own.  She
grips my hand, without
fragility, tells me,
“You are good” and
it means just that.

When Grandmother says she’ll pray for something,
it is wise to have faith. For her,
even wishbone wishes come true.

Her prayers are long,
include every grandchild by name.
She prays, “Dear Lord, for what is best…”
and it is not less to be one
of so many grandchildren, for
her prayers have strength.

And she prays,
“Dear God, thank you that I still am able,” as
she hangs wet clothing between
two trees older than she, but
less gnarled.

And I, without any gods, pray too, pray,  dear god dear
god, dear
thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou

that she still is able.

North west shore of Lake Michigan with whitecaps –   July 27, 2011

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

June 26, 2017

Almost mid-summer. Feels to me like time for a break in the routine of summer break.

W H Auden came to mind while I prayed this morning.

Have a blest day as this work week begins.

john sj

Today’s Post

The chimney sweepers
Wash their faces and forget to wash the neck;
The lighthouse keepers
Let the lamps go out and leave the ships to wreck;
The prosperous baker
Leaves the rolls in hundreds in the oven to burn;
The undertaker
Pins a small note on the coffin saying “Wait till I return,
“I’ve got a date with Love.”

And deep-sea divers
Cut their boots off and come bubbling to the top,
And engine-drivers
Bring expresses in the tunnel to a stop;
The village rector
Dashes down the side-aisle half-way through a psalm;
The sanitary inspector
Runs off with the cover of the cesspool on his arm —
To keep his date with Love.

w h auden (February 1908 – September 1973)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Auden)

Wednesday, May 31

I hadn’t begun to look for a poem this morning for today’s post, technically at least, the final post before Work Day/Hard Time’s summer break (back again August 1).  I was only browsing Crain’s Detroit Business before turning to a poem.   This Crain’s piece caught my eye and, distracted from a poem search, I read an article with this headline:  “Orchestras conference to return to Detroit after 31 years.”  For this 35+ year Detroit homey, the piece is delicious.  It does not ignore my city’s wounds and the slow process of rebirth in more and more places within our 140 square miles.  For me, rebirth articles turn my head, often.  Like yesterday’s news that The Ford Foundation just announced that it will be opening an office in the City, a follow up on its startling $125M investment in our bankruptcy’s “Grand Bargain.”  Homeys here know that although Henry and his son Edsel founded the Ford Foundation in 1936, a fight with Henry the Deuce c. 1955 shut down the Foundation’s presence in Southeast Michigan until, c. 2 years ago.  Then, they backed our Architecture School’s process for a fifty year Detroit Future City plan.  From that start several years ago, and the Foundation’s lead role in the Grand Bargain, comes yesterday’s news about an office in the city (http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2017/05/30/ford-foundation-office/102332510/).  Homey’s delight.

Even so, today’s piece about the Orchestras Conference coming to Motown to talk about the DSO’s pretty amazing rebirth, turns my head today.   I remember my first time at Orchestra Hall, c. 1982. The Hall’s rescue from the wrecking ball was just “in progress.” That evening, I learned during my first live performance there, why it is counted one of the acoustical wonders of the country.  Today, Orchestra Hall lives at the center of some billions of investment dollars all around it.   Next week, the DSP will  host c. 1000 orchestra people, coming to talk about how this rebirth came to be (http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20170525/news/629531/orchestras-conference-return-detroit-after-31-years#utm_medium=email&utm_source=cdb-afternoon&utm_campaign=cdb-afternoon-20170526).

Yes, I’m a little giddy.  That’s partly because my week on Pine Ridge leaves me alive with beauty and a history of kinship there.  Maybe partly too because I was looking for a good send-off to the list before summer break.  I hope you check out both Crain’s articles.

Let me conclude, though, with a wonderful poem written by Rashani Rea.  The poet’s evocation of rebirth, was not explicitly written for Detroit, but . . . .   Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses.

See you c. August 1.   Have a blest summer, our beauty and turmoil and all.

john sj

Today’s Post:  “The Unbroken”

There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.

There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.

~ Rashani Réa

Friday, May 26, 2017
Most of this year’s time on the Rez I’ve already lived;  I begin to ease into the kind of sadness that tells me that the beauty of these long friendships and the long love of this land have found their way into my distractible imagination once again.  St Ignatius teaches that sadness during goodbyes is a good sign,  opens the beauty of the people and the place who have once again worked down into me and changed me.  So it is with most of us when our love for where we are in the world catches our attention.

Here’s the post I wrote one year ago,  David Whyte makes good company for the 2nd last of these 8 days.

Have a blest weekend.    next post on Mem Day from Motown.

john sj

Wednesday May 24,  a wisdom-saying born on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation

“Time spent baking bread follows the pace of yeast”

I slept in until almost 8:00 after a lovely evening with Don & Paulette Montileaux in Rapid City;  we talked about artists and life-long creativity until c. 8:30.  Then I spent c. 40 minutes at a gas station searching for my cell phone all through the car and under it 3 times until I saw it about 15 feet away on the pavement just waiting for a car to run over it.  Didn’t happen but it got me home late with all the Jesuits asleep and I soon after.

Here is a poem from last year on Pine Ridge + a couple pics.

Blessings,

john sj

Thursday May 18   about very old wine and time for contemplation

A busy time in my work life rearranges this week’s calendar for posts,  Monday and Thursday instead of M-W-Fr.  An intuition sent me back to Fatema Keshavarz and her contemplation of 7000-year-old wine.   “Breathe a little more often than usual”;  that’s what this morning’s intuition tells me.  Might be good for you too.

Next week, I will write from Pine Ridge, SD for a week with long-standing soul friends and sacred places of beauty and memory.

john sj

Today’s Post: Shiraz, “the oldest sample of wine in the world”

Monday after Commencement, May 15

Remembering when I lost my copy of The Freeing of the Dust;  remembering when a close friend restored the book with a signed copy.   Why am I thinking of this long loved love poem today? — Spring sun dancing all over the city?  The new  Q-Line rail just opened on Woodward?   Memories of our McNicols  graduates and their kin dancing all over campus on Saturday’s Commencement, and their fellow graduates from the Law School and the Dental School?  Showers of joy and live affection, of pride and relief,  days for dancing.   Sure the world’s wounds remain.  Today, though, remembering beauty and play wants attention.

Have a blest day,  as this work week in the middle of May begins.

john sj

Here’s introduction I wrote for “Revolutionary Love” two years ago in April.

Today’s Post  – “Prayer for Revolutionary Love”

McNichols Campus April 27, 2006

Monday, May 8  “And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white . . . ”

I listened to a news report yesterday about the unique terrors of chemical weapons, those originating in chemical labs during World War I and those whose appearance in present battlefields frightens so many observers.  “Unique terrors” (1) their effect in the bodies of children and grown-ups from the moment they engulf their living bodies, causing some of the most ordinary body processes (e.g., breathing, speaking, seeing) to collapse into biological horrors; (2) these horrors terrify especially because they last and last, leaving maimed victims to walk the earth carrying disfigurements that seem never to go away.   That experience helps explain why World War I left gas attack survivors walking city streets pulling terror and despair in their wake.

And that terror helps to understand why the first years of the 1920s are marked by cruel reactions of deeply frightened people (e.g., the reborn Ku Klux Klan peaked in 1924; the year when more black Americans were lynched than any other year in U S history;  the year of the “Immigration Act of  1924” when Congress shut down the promise that this country welcomes immigrants from all parts of the world, when the “Other” was redefined not as a source of blessing, of renewing energy for the national symbolized by its Statue of Liberty, but as hoards of aliens threatening the nation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924).

Not a few observers of our current historical moment find 1920-25 a compelling metaphor for the competing antagonisms roiling the political order of 2017.

No surprise, perhaps, that exquisite poems, written in the years just after World War I can speak to people paying attention to our present tense.  Poets sometimes seek “flint-hard” words to help readers come close to fear and to tenderness and not to flinch from either.  In today’s post, Sarah Teasdale evokes a Spring whose delicate beauty, in blossom and bird song, require the reader’s attention to war as a world-ending genocide.

Best to read “soft rains” out loud, with pauses between the two for some breathing.

Monday of the 4th week of Easter in the Christian tradition.   In Detroit spring in full blossom and covered with sunshine.

Have a blest week.

john sj

p.s. I’m on the road Wednesday in Santa Clara and Friday in Connecticut; see you next week.

Today’s Post # 1  “There Will Come Soft Rains”
Sara Teasdale, 1884 – 1933

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Sarah Trevor Teasdale  1884-1933

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