Poetry Blog: "A Work Day in Hard Times"

Friday, September 16   “lovely as the roses are, I might rather
Hide, huddled in a cave”

Ordinarily, when people come to the Jesuit Residence for a few days of stillness and prayer, the house welcomes them with just that, stillness and hospitality that makes a place for prayer.   These last weeks, with heavy machinery and skilled construction workers creating new space for Detroit Mercy’s College of Health Professions,  one of our prayer guests found stillness anyway.  S/he wrote this poem to remember a morning’s prayer, when s/he tasted fatigue and the grief from several deaths that came too close in time and very close in the soul.

Right here on McNichols Road, s/he tasted grace.   Best to read the poem out loud.

Have a blest weekend.

john sj

Today’s Post – morning prayer in the city

Wednesday, September 7 – “All this tripping about”

Getting very busy around the university; lots of fast walking and flipping from thought to thought and task to task.  Except tomorrow morning, when the university’s sacred anointing of a new year takes the form of “Celebrate Spirit!”  in the University Fitness Center at 11:30.   We celebrate with a Catholic mass, a homily and a speaker, and beautiful rituals of our identity.

Catherine McAuley could have been writing about Detroit Mercy as our new year cranks up in this memorable saying from her over-busy life leading the fledgling Sisters of Mercy.  The Mercies were born in an Ireland made brutal by the Industrial Revolution of British textiles when the Enclosure Movement evicted subsistence farmers from small plots to open broad spaces for sheep grazing.  Dublin became a city where wealth flourished in the center while its growing periphery packed in desperate poor people driven off those small village plots.  She named her fast walking and flipping from task to task “tripping about.”

“Amidst all this tripping about: our hearts can always be in the same place
centered in God, for whom alone we go forward, or stay back.”
Catherine McAuley (December, 1840)

Catherine McAuley 1778 – 1841
Foundress: Sisters of Mercy 1831

Lovely expression, “tripping about.” Better to trip about, I guess, than to just trip.  Better to hustle and scramble with a moment of breathing here and there in the day.   Here’s a short poem to open a space for breathing  in  the middle of the early weeks of the academic year.  I’ve posted it three times before.

Have a blest day,

john sj

Today’s Post “Enough”

Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.

David Whyte, Where Many Rivers Meet

p.s. An ordinary blessing from living in a community — perhaps especially an urban university community, perhaps especially a community in a city groaning with unpredictable and wild labor pains of birth all around the city — is that friends of many years sometimes turn up and you weren’t even the one who invited them;  another Jesuit did this time.    So this morning while making oatmeal for breakfast, a soul friend of many years, walked into our breakfast place.   We’ve talked a while about our lives and how we see the wide world in what this List calls “a work day in a hard time.”  We talked about posting to our blogs and poets we love.  She asked me if I ever posted David Whyte . . . .  yes.

Melanie Svoboda’s blog can be accessed here   www.melanniesvobodasnd.org

Monday September 12   Jim Wallis and Mary Oliver

I am taking liberties: linking Jim Wallis, founder of the Sojourners Community in Washington DC, and Mary Oliver, a poet of many decades, without asking them.  Yesterday afternoon, I came from Jim Wallis’ talk in our Gesu Parish across the street from the university’s campus.  He spoke of the “American Original Sin of White Privilege” with compelling biblical logic.  I may be mis-remembering a little, but memory suggests that he concluded his talk to a full house of believers by focusing what had gone before with words close to these: “Conviction must open us to taking action.”    Wallis meant, I think, that talking about the sin of white privilege and its consequences, and praying, is a work of grace; but insufficient.  We must let our conversations and our prayer move us toward taking action in the world.

Perhaps that’s why later this evening when thumbing through Mary Oliver poems for Monday’s post, her “What I have learned so far,” caught my attention, especially her last two lines.  Fresh from Jim Wallis’ talk, Mary Oliver’s trenchant words sound familiar to this day.

I found her poem requiring several readings, with pauses.  But I say that most days, don’t I?  Strong poems always do.

Have a blest work week.

john sj

Today’s post     “What I have Learned So  Far”

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

Mary Oliver b. 1935

Jim Wallis b 1948
https://sojo.net/biography/jim-wallis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Wallis

Friday, September 9  “Did I Miss Anything?”

The end of week two of this teaching and learning year.  A deft poem giving its word’s to a teacher’s voice, and the teacher within the poem imagining the voices of students on a hard day.   It’s another subtle piece of writing, warranting several reads.

Thanks to the friend who sent this to the list.

Have a blest weekend.

john sj

Today’s post 

Did I Miss Anything?

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 percent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring the good news to all people  on earth.

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been gathered

but it was one place

And you weren’t here

Tom Wayman  1945 –

Wednesday September 7     ” And no
his neighborhood is not like a war zone”

We human beings who live and work in Detroit, 8 Mile down to the River,  live with many perceptions of Detroit.  Jamaal May’s “There are Birds Here”  was new to me before a friend sent it, suggesting if for the “Work Day/Hard Time” poetry list.  Every poem does best when read aloud, with pauses.   Today’s, perhaps, especially so by the 3rd or 4th reading.

Have a blest day.

john sj

Today’s Post  

There Are Birds Here

By Jamaal May

For Detroit

There are birds here,
so many birds here
is what I was trying to say
when they said those birds were metaphors
for what is trapped
between buildings
and buildings. No.
The birds are here
to root around for bread
the girl’s hands tear
and toss like confetti. No,
I don’t mean the bread is torn like cotton,
I said confetti, and no
not the confetti
a tank can make of a building.
I mean the confetti
a boy can’t stop smiling about
and no his smile isn’t much
like a skeleton at all. And no
his neighborhood is not like a war zone.
I am trying to say
his neighborhood
is as tattered and feathered
as anything else,
as shadow pierced by sun
and light parted
by shadow-dance as anything else,
but they won’t stop saying
how lovely the ruins,
how ruined the lovely
children must be in that birdless city.

Jamaal May, “There Are Birds Here” from The Big Book of Exit Strategies. Copyright © 2016 by Jamaal May. Reprinted by permission of Alice James Books.

Source: The Big Book of Exit Strategies (Alice James Books, 2016) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26196185-the-big-book-of-exit-strategies

Monday, September 5  “I watch my grandmother”

Labor Day in Motown calls out people who work for wages, to organize so that their individual voices become collective, a union of working people.  Labor Day in Motown means to remind people who work for wages that influence in the public order does not come easy.

Labor Day in Motown means picnics and laughter, beer with brats grilling,  means cooking for each other.  Labor Day is a holiday: reminds us that not all our work is work for wages;  lots of it is work for family and friends.  Not all that family labor is cooking, though a lot of it is.

My mother cooked a lot and knew what she was up to when she did.  She also loved washing clothes in an old wringer-washing machine, she told us as she aged into her nineties that carrying clean wet laundry up 8 stairs from the basement to hang the clothes on the back yard line kept her aging body active.   One of my favorite poets, her youngest granddaughter, Terri, paid attention and wrote about her.

Here’s one of my favorites, an homage to my mother, a working woman on Labor Day.

This is so short I hardly need to invite reading it out loud.

Have a blest Labor Day.

john sj

Summer in Wisconsin

I watch my grandmother,
ninety years old and arthritic,
smearing Vaseline on the poles of bird feeders.
A squirrel climbs one despite,
shimmies up to steal seeds,
brazen in the sunlight.

Terri  Breeden

Mac Bridge on Labor day, a great Labor Day tradition in my state —  http://www.mightymac.org/bridgewalk.htm

5 miles across

john sj

“Although the direction of the walk was south to north in the early years, the walk is now always from the Upper Peninsula to the lower Peninsula. A fleet school buses takes the majority of the walkers from the Mackinaw City side to the foot of the bridge in St. Ignace. The other walkers use the buses to return to the UP after their walk. There is no fee to walk the bridge, but there is a $5 charge for the bus. The buses depart from the Old State Dock in Mackinaw City from 5:30 AM until 2:30 PM.

To manage the 30-80,000 people who walk the bridge, the following are NOT permitted: smoking, signs, banners, umbrellas, bicycles, roller skates, skateboards, wagons and other similar devices. Baby strollers and wheelchairs are allowed on the bridge during the walk. The ONLY animals permitted are working service dogs.”

Friday, September 2  —
“Talking with the Sun”

Days of early autumn sun, crisp air.  You can see by the way people walk around campus that we are breathing better these days.  Lots of smiles for this respite from a mean hot damp stretch.  This morning, I was listening for a voice I had not heard recently, one of the poets who offers me the grace of slowing down to notice the shape of my life.  I found Joy Harjo, soul friend and strong poet.  Last January, she sent me a new book, fresh for new listening,  Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings.   I found my first poem there, “Talking with the Sun.”  How does a grandmother carry her fourth granddaughter out into the sun on a rainy (New York) Times Square morning?

Have a blest weekend,

john sj

Today’ Post   Joy Harjo  “Talking with the Sun”

I believe in the sun.
In the tangle of human failures of fear, greed, and
forgetfulness, the sun gives me clarity.
When explorers first encountered my people, they called us
heathens, sun worshippers.
They didn’t understand that the sun is a relative, and
illuminates our path on this earth.

After dancing all night in a circle we realize that we are a
part of a larger sense of stars and planets dancing with us
overhead.
When the sun rises at the apex of the ceremony, we are
renewed.
There is no mistaking this connection, though Walmart
might be just down the road.
Humans are vulnerable and rely on the kindnesses of the
earth and sun; we exist together in a sacred field of
meaning.

Our earth is shifting.  We can all see it.
I hear from my Inuit and Yupik relatives up north that
everything has changed.  It’s so hot; there is not enough
winter.
Animals are confused. Ice is melting.

The quantum physicists have it right; they are beginning to
think like Indians: everything is connected dynamically
at an intimate level.
When you remember this, then the current wobble of the
earth makes sense.  How much more oil can be drained,
Without replacement; without reciprocity?

I walked out of a hotel room just off Times Square at dawn
to find the sun.
It was the fourth morning since the birth of my fourth
granddaughter.
This was the morning I was to present her to the sun, as a
relative, as one of us.  It was still dark, overcast as I walked
through Times Square.
I stood beneath a twenty-first century totem pole of symbols
of multinational corporations, made of flash and neon.

The sun rose up over the city but I couldn’t see it amidst the
rain.
Though I was not at home, bundling up the baby to carry
her outside,
I carried this newborn girl within the cradleboard of my
heart.
I held her up and presented her to the sun, so she would be
recognized as a relative,
So that she won’t forget this connection, this promise,
So that we all remember, the sacredness of life.

Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo 2012.
(b. May 9, 1951)

Wednesday  August 31  –  “A little faith will see you through”

For this last day of August,  here’s a short Garrison Keillor poem, crackling with wit, the trenchant, sour sort woven into the playful, kind and wise.  A mid-week break should you be finding this election season’s angry public language tedious and distressing.

Have a blest day.  The poem wants to hear itself out loud.

john sj

Today’s Post 

A little  faith will see you through.
What else will except faith in such a cynical corrupt time?
When the country goes temporarily to the dogs,
cats must learn to be circumspect,
walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith
that all this woofing is not the last word.

Even in a time of elephantine greed and vanity,
one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.
Lacking any other purpose in life,
it would be good enough to live for their sake.

Garrison Keillor

September 25, 2010 — the picnic after Celebrate Spirit by Detroit Mercy’s fountain

Monday, August 29   “Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.”

Students moved into our residence halls these past two days  —  muggy weather,  pelting rains too.  Moms and Dads and students hauling bedroom and study room stuff onto and off elevators.  Settling in;  a new year.  This morning the classes for Term One, 2016-17 begin.  The parking lots get crowded.

Last night I had a poem ready for today, a fresh and powerful voice of the city, a Detroit voice.  This morning, though, I decided to move that poem back to Wednesday.  Richard Wilbur’s “The Writer” speaks to the hopes and restraints of parents as their children launch themselves out into a wider world.  The verse that leads this post comes three stanzas in, such a fine blessing when helping the leap out from home.

We ran “The Writer” on May 13, just about Commencement Day.  It works for start-up day too.    Reading out loud remains a good idea.  Have a blest work week.

john sj

Today’s Post  “the writer”

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.

     richard wilbur  March 1, 1921  –

About Wilbur’s poems, one reviewer for The Washington Post said, “Throughout his career Wilbur has shown, within the compass of his classicism, enviable variety. His poems describe fountains and fire trucks, grasshoppers and toads, European cities and country pleasures. All of them are easy to read, while being suffused with an astonishing verbal music and a compacted thoughtfulness that invite sustained reflection.”  {poets.org}