{"id":2993,"date":"2019-04-12T00:00:42","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T04:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=2993"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:43:30","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:43:30","slug":"april-12-is-it-harder-to-stand-still-in-a-place-of-grief-or-a-place-of-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2019\/04\/12\/april-12-is-it-harder-to-stand-still-in-a-place-of-grief-or-a-place-of-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"April 12 – “is it harder to stand still in a place of grief or a place of joy”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, April 12, 2019<\/p>\n

\u201cthe singing robes fly onto your body and cling there silkily,
\nYou step out on the rope and move unfalteringly across it . . . ”<\/p>\n

Is it harder to stand still in a place of grief or a place of joy? \u00a0 About two years ago, a friend described a moment of \u00a0liberating\u00a0joy that took her\/his breath away that would s\/he thought require weeks of revisiting the joy, learning not to be afraid of its depth and inner resonance. \u00a0My friend and I agreed, as it turned out, that learning to be still with grief, hard as that is, \u00a0usually comes more readily than learning to be still with joy.\u00a0 Both\u00a0of us were surprised that we had encountered this invitation to deep presence in a moment of shocking joy. \u00a0 The memory will take some living into, perhaps for months and years.<\/p>\n

All of which reminded me of one of Denise Levertov\u2019s strongest poems. \u00a0 Try it out, \u00a0reading aloud with pauses. \u00a0N.B., the poem\u2019s core metaphor is a supple, Houdini-like risk-taker on a high wire above a deep pit.<\/p>\n

rain this morning in the mid-U.S., a monster storm gradually following a typical West to East pattern; \u00a0 lots of troubles in Denver, and Western South Dakota, both places dear to me, especially my Lakota soul friends on Pine Ridge, some had to take refuge in motels.<\/p>\n

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

john st sj<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The Poem Rising By Its Own Weight
\nThe poet is at the disposal of his own night.”
\nJean Cocteau<\/p>\n

The singing robes fly onto your body and cling there silkily,
\nYou step out on the rope and move unfalteringly across it,<\/p>\n

And seize the fiery knives unscathed and
\nKeep them spinning above you, a fountain
\nOf rhythmic rising, falling, rising
\nFlames,<\/p>\n

And proudly let the chains
\nBe wound about you, ready
\nTo shed them, link by steel link,
\npadlock by padlock\u2013<\/p>\n

but when your graceful
\nconfident shrug and twist drives the metal
\ninto your flesh and the python grip of it tightens
\nand you see rust on the chains and blood in your pores
\nand you roll
\nover and down a steepness into a dark hole
\nand there is not even the sound of mockery in the distant air
\nsomewhere above you where the sky was,
\nno sound but your own breath panting:
\nthen it is that the miracle
\nwalks in, on his swift feet,
\ndown the precipice straight into the cave,
\nopens the locks,
\nknots of chain fall open,
\ntwists of chain unwind themselves,
\nlinks fall asunder,
\nin seconds there is a heap of scrap-
\nmetal at your ankles, you step free and at once
\nhe turns to go \u2014
\nbut as you catch at him with a cry,
\nclasping his knees, sobbing your gratitude,
\nwith what radiant joy he turns to you,
\nand raises you to your feet,
\nand strokes your disheveled hair,
\nand holds you,
\nholds you,
\nholds you
\nclose and tenderly before he vanishes.<\/p>\n

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

Denise Levertov<\/p>\n

b. October 1923 \u00a0d. December 1997
\nhttps:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Denise_Levertov<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, April 12, 2019 \u201cthe singing robes fly onto your body and cling there silkily, You step out on the rope and move unfalteringly across it . . . ” Is it harder to stand still in a place of … 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\/2993"}],"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=2993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2994,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2993\/revisions\/2994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}