{"id":1837,"date":"2016-04-18T00:00:27","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T04:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=1837"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:47:45","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:47:45","slug":"april-18-days-that-look-like-spring-should-feel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2016\/04\/18\/april-18-days-that-look-like-spring-should-feel\/","title":{"rendered":"April 18 – days that look like Spring should feel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday, April 18 \u00a0\u00a0\u2014 \u00a0leaves, & flowers waking up<\/strong>
\nMust be spring. \u00a0I checked Weather.com<\/a>\u2019s allergy tracker this morning, a respiratory seasonal ritual for me and for many others. \u00a0Worth it, though, \u00a0Today\u2019s dawn might be the seventh glorious morning in a row. \u00a0Campus trees and flowers begin to show their stuff. \u00a0Adults and children skip and laugh. \u00a0 \u00a0Yesterday, two girls (8 years old?) played among older people come to watch Detroit Mercy\u2019s women\u2019s softball team play Green Bay\u2019s. \u00a0The girls, one African American, one Caucasian, ran and laughed with reckless abandon and filled our urban space with . . . \u00a0with Spring.<\/p>\n

A year ago on a similar morning the season\u2019s sheer beauty led me to Gerard Manley Hopkins, s.j. \u00a0 \u201cThe Windhover’s beauty of word and sound \u00a0match these days. \u00a0Even if it takes two or three readings to adapt your ear to his word play, it\u2019s worth it. \u00a0\u00a0Hopkins is \u00a0[in]famous for the packed meaning of his vocabulary. \u00a0 \u00a0His life-long friend Robert Bridges often ground his aesthetic teeth at what seemed to him to be GMH\u2019s unnecessary complexity. \u00a0 On November 6, 1887, Hopkins wrote Bridges, attempting to explain the density of his language. \u00a0Try reading GMH\u2019s explanation out loud. \u00a0 Did GMH tease his frustrated Poet Laureate friend by creating a single sentence that never seems to run out of breath?<\/p>\n

\u201cPlainly if it is possible to express a subtle and recondite thought on a subtle and recondite subject in a subtle and recondite way and with great felicity and perfection in the end,\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0something must be sacrificed, with so trying a task, in the process, and this may be the being at once, nay perhaps even the being without explanation at all, intelligible.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Have a blest week,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post: \u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cThe Windhover:\u00a0To Christ our Lord\u201d<\/p>\n

I caught this morning morning\u2019s minion, king-
\ndom of daylight\u2019s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in
\nhis riding
\nOf the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
\nHigh there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
\nIn his ecstasy! \u00a0then off, off forth on swing,
\nAs a skate\u2019s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl
\nand gliding
\nRebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
\nStirred for a bird,\u2013the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!<\/p>\n

Brute beauty and valor and act, oh, air, pride, plume here
\nBuckle! \u00a0And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
\nTimes told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!<\/p>\n

No wonder of it: \u00a0sh\u00e9er pl\u1ed1d makes plough down sillion
\nShine, and blue-bleak embers, a my dear,
\nFall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.<\/p>\n

\"GMHopkins\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gerard Manley Hopkins \u00a028 July 1844 \u2013 8 June, 1889
\nPosted on\u00a0May 13, 2015<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday, April 18 \u00a0\u00a0\u2014 \u00a0leaves, & flowers waking up Must be spring. \u00a0I checked Weather.com\u2019s allergy tracker this morning, a respiratory seasonal ritual for me and for many others. \u00a0Worth it, though, \u00a0Today\u2019s dawn might be the seventh glorious morning … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1837"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3188,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837\/revisions\/3188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}