Poetry Blog: "A Work Day in Hard Times"

Wednesday November 6, 2013

Early this morning I carried a cup of oatmeal down the hall from the front parlor area where the microwave is into our dining room. I sat in the same quiet place where I have eaten oatmeal for years, looking out the window toward Health Professions and Briggs. My first breakfast there, a place that means home to me, since late May. Being welcome matters a lot. Oatmeal and stillness put me on to today’s poem.

Some years ago George Herbert’s “Love Bade me Welcome” (1633) reminded me of Marion Sweetser. Marian lived in Minneapolis a widow with 6 or 7 children and loads of grandkids. One day in summer 1965 I and 3 other young Jesuits showed up at her door. We were driving from Wisconsin to Pine Ridge South Dakota to begin the year’s teaching at Red Cloud Indian School and she cooked lunch for us. The 25 year old she saw at her doorstep was a wreck — underweight, on the verge of colitis, intense. Marian recognized instantly that I needed welcome and wasn’t good at being welcomed. She was a master at both and that day began a magical friendship. For 25 years I stopped by any chance I could to spend time with Marion. Until she died, in her nineties, in 1994.

George Herbert’s poem helps me remember Marion, and the women and men who have welcomed me into their places. I am posting G Herbert today to dance a little at the rebirth of my house’s kitchen, our place of hospitality, and to celebrate the mutuality and playful hospitality on which each of us depends as we live our commitments.

I’ll be gone til Sunday, next post Monday. Have a good weekend.
john sj

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, .
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked anything.
‘A guest,’ I answer’d,’ worthy to be here’:
Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear
I cannot look on Thee.’
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
‘Who made the eyes but I?’
“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘who bore the blame?’
‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste My meat.’
So I did sit and eat.
George Herbert 1633

Tuesday November 5

November at UDM is a month laced with fatigue, teaching and learning, working at teaching and working at learning, they are the hammer and the anvil on which we forge a university. This November again, and perhaps more than ordinarily, signs of fatigue seem to show themselves a lot — stories of deaths, wounds in the loves of our lives, and frustrations that need a stronger word than that to describe them. It’s a demanding time in a demanding year.

Perhaps that’s why I decided to take some liberties and go autobiographical with today’s poem. My neice Terri writes poetry; and she grew up wildly in love with her grandmother. My mom died at 102 in 2005 and Terri wrote about it, one of a series of poems about grandma.

Posted with affection and respect for the women and men with whom I live and work. Particularly respect for our griefs and our honorable fatigue.

john sj
The Living

It’s strange the things people say
after a death, crooked attempts
to comfort. Things like, “Oh,

well she was old. She had a long life.”
or “She was ready to go.” One woman
even said, her hand resting on my shoulder

“Her death was easy; that
should make you happy.”
Happy. Easy. Words I never

put together with death, words I still
can’t quite get my arms around
no matter my wingspan.

And I think, Oh, this stumbling
over language as if it were new,
despite a familiarity with time,

the exhaustion and experience
of years, despite consideration of death,
having greeted that recognizable face before.

It is easy to forget, tangled
in words of comfort,
that the dead

are dead; they do not feel
the pain of departing,
do not need to be consoled.

It is those who are left
who know the burden of sad and hard,
bowed low beneath the weight of loss.

My son will never know her. He will never
understand why when he glares, shoulders
angled back and jaw thrust out

stubborn like her, belligerent and
ready for a fight, I, a fighter too,
can only cry and hold him close.

Monday November 4

Claire Crabtree followed Thursday’s Denise Levertov posting (“Ancient Airs and Dances”) by writing to say:  “My Study of Poetry students usually really like ‘O Taste and See’ I’ve noticed.”   I read some about that poem and learned that quite a few of Levertov’s fans consider the book to which this poem gives its title  a breakthrough work, perhaps the first Levertov collection that had caught their attention (1964).   My own Levertov breakthrough book is The Freeing of the Dust  (1975).   Here’s the title poem from the 1964 book; thanks to Claire for pointing me to it.

A new month,  Detroit elections, the city’s bankruptcy hearings continue, a bidding contest emerges for the ownership rights to restore the old Packard Plant, Tigers have hired a gold glove catcher as their next manager,  one hour more to sleep over the weekend,  leaves are turning.  Have a blest day.

john sj

O Taste and See

The world is
not with us enough
O taste and see
the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,
grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform
into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being
hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

Denise Levertov

October 31, The Eve of All Hallows

Denise Levertov died in her late 60ies; I miss her, a fiery advocate for global justice and a poet of the sacred mysteries of intimacy. She published, in her later years, a wonderful book of poems she titled Evening Train. One of my favorite of her poems appears there; about being startled by the heart’s surprises in older age. If you are older I bet you breathe in her kindness laced with humor; if you are younger, she gives you good stuff to look forward to . . . the graces of being surprizable.

john sj

p.s. I have an early flight to the AJCU Mission & Identity officer meeting in Philly. Back Monday. Have a fine weekend.

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

Wednesday Oct 30

In the 1980s UofD’s library had a framing service that did fine work. You could bring some piece you wanted framed,discuss the type and color of matting and frame, and pay a pretty reasonable price for a fine piece of wall-beauty. Perfect wedding gift because you could choose a text that felt right for the couple choosing the daring bravery of deep intimacy marked with a hope for their future. The framing service fell victim to a tightened budget one year. Made sense, running a framing shop was pretty far from a university’s core business of research and teaching and service. I still miss it though.

Blessings for the day

john sj

Today’s poem: Hand’s down, my favorite poems for wedding gifts came from Tagore’s Gitanjali . Here’s No. 63

Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not.
Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own.
Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger.

I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter;
I forget that there abides the old in the new,
and that there also thou abidest.

Through birth and death, in this world or in others,
wherever thou leadest me it is thou, the same,
the one companion of my endless life
who ever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar.

When one knows thee, then alien there is none,
then no door is shut.
Oh, grant me my prayer
that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the one
in the play of the many.

Tagore Gitanjali #63

Tagore died in the city of his birth, Calcutta, in 1941.  He vastly influenced poetry, sacred and secular, not only in India but around the world.  He is the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.  If you buy Gitanjali, a book of 100 short sacred poems, prepare yourself to only read one poem at a time so you can sit with it.  Here is # 1.   These poems have no titles, only numbers.

Tuesday October 29

This short prayer challenges me whenever I think to read it. It challenges me to recognize beauty while recognizing my propensity to nit pick about flaws. Flawed beauty is the only beauty on offer and, when I find the grace to notice, I come away playful and nourished.

Blessings on your day.

john sj

Prayer for Everyday

I think You want me
to let You
thank me for my generosities.

You want me
to let You
call me beautiful.

My own voice qualifies
your gratitude
— so creative, so majestic, so innocent and so kind —
endlessly.

But I give my permission.

July 18, 1997

Monday  October 28

On  September 26 one year & one month ago, Dave Nantais, Director of University Ministry sent this blessing on the list.  It’s taken from the health care tradition of the Sisters of Mercy.    Dave introduced it as follows:   “Our September reflection comes from the College of Health Professions. Faculty, staff and students from the college created the “Blessing of Hands” that we prayed during Celebrate Spirit. ”

When I browsed the folder of poems and blessings this morning it caught my attention.   Felt like a good opener for this week.

john sj

Today’s Word:  Blessing of Hands

Hold up your hands and look at them
See your hands as God sees them.
Recognize the source of their power.

Imagine your life in and beyond the classroom. See the work of your hands in kitchens and corridors, on tennis and basketball courts, in dorms and dining rooms, at planning tables and parties and in gatherings of every kind.  Choose to use your hands this year for good. Trust that your hands will know the right thing to do even when you do not; and know that, in every act, small or large, the work of your hands makes a difference.

Bless the work of our hands.

Bless the hands that build lasting things.
– hands of architects, engineers and chemists;
– of stone masons and day laborers;
– of writers and printers; of inventors and computer programmers;.
– of teachers and parents, negotiators and peacemakers, poets and musicians.
Bless the hands that build, we pray.

Bless the hands that heal.
– hands that skillfully clean and mend and comfort those in pain;.
– that create beauty in art and song, in homes, parks and gardens;
– that touch with strength, with compassion and tenderness, with healing power.
– that are lifted up in prayer asking for the transformation of difficult situations.
Bless the hands that heal, we pray.

Bless the hands that reach into the future
– hands that open with invitation and hope,
– that reach out to new possibilities
– that hold strong to what is just,
– that extend their passion for doing good toward a world in need.
Bless the hands that reach into the future, we pray.

Friday October 25

Ending the work week, tending to the serious business of noticing beauty. Walking up the concrete steps by the Student Union stairs to the Titan Dining Room, a maple tree rich with color, stopped me. I looked and looked at sheer beauty; the maple interrupted my travel across campus and left me poor and still and full of joy. A distinctly autumn experience.

Here’s a short poem, written during doctoral studies at Penn in the mid 1970s that tries to capture the same experience.

Autumn blessings this weekend.

john st sj

For the dogwood in our yard, middle of October

Autumn’s russet colors

Age without solemnity
Earthy and simple, they linger
Linger,
Not for grandeur
Nor from fear of the dust they will become

Their affection for this place
These ripening moments
Even me the beholder
Slows the pace of changing.

Let me be won by this warmth
To slow my chosen pace
To ripen affectionately.

Thursday, October 24

“In easy times you don’t have to be so careful about your language, you will spontaneously find playful words, wise with kindness. In hard time it helps to pay attention to word choices. I decided to choose one prayer or poem each work day for a while.” {Wednesday September 25, 2013}

Looking for a post this work day morning stirred memories I sometimes overlook. Here is one, a prayer-poem rediscovered c. 7:20 today as if it were completely new, a blessing from a century ago sent my way by Rabindranath Tagore, that endlessly surprising writer. I’m glad to pass it along.

Blessings on your day.

john sj

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

Tagore 5

Wednesday, October 23

A recent grad called me last night to talk about a close women friend who had called him a few days before after she was raped by someone she knew. She was second close friend to open her experience of savage violence in the world of promising and talented and generous young adults. The first was his little sister two years ago. We talked a while about powerlessness and violence, rage and shame. About grief.

It happens that tomorrow is this year’s evening about domestic violence (5:30 Chem 114). Lori Glenn and the College of Health Professions, as well as students from Leadership Development will host. I can’t make it because tomorrow evening UDM’s board will be meeting at the same time. Last year I was there — strong truth telling about date rape and rape in other contexts. Excellent questions from students.

Gender’s creativities and brutalities live within us as a university community. I hope you can be there tomorrow night in Chem 114. Here’s Lori’s announcement.

Please join us for to learn more about dating violence and healthy relationships. We will start with a presentation in Chemistry 114 at 5:30pm. Food will be served. At approximately 7:00pm we will convene in the Kassab Mall to honor victims of all types of domestic violence with a Candlelight Vigil.
Please come!   Bring a friend!   Better yet…bring a date!

Today’s word

Denise Levertov wrote “A Prayer for Revolutionary Love” 20 years ago or so. I have given this to friends many times.
Prayer for Revolutionary Love

That a woman not ask a man to leave meaningful work to follow her
That a man not ask a woman to leave meaningful work to follow him.

That no one try to put Eros in bondage
But that no one put a cudgel in the hands of Eros.
That our loyalty to one another and our loyalty to our work
not be set in false conflict.

That our love for each other give us love for each other’s work
That our love for each other’s work give us love for one another.
That our love for each other’s work give us love for one another.
That our love for each other give us love for each other’s work.

That our love for each other, if need be,
give way to absence. And the unknown.
That we endure absence, if need be,
without losing our love for each other.
Without closing our doors to the unknown.

Have a blest day.

john st sj