Yesterday a friend emailed after I\u2019d posted Gerard Manley Hopkins\u2019 \u201cHurrahing in the Harvest\u201d and asked if I could send a Hopkins poem that one of his high school teachers assigned. He said the poem bewildered him then and he wanted to return to it. \u201cSpring and Fall: to a young child\u201d isn\u2019t really addressed to a young child, I think. The poet writes this elegy to us adults as we contemplate our children as they very gradually learn that along with play and discovery and wonder, they will eventually learn loss and grief.<\/p>\n
All week our media has begun to interpret the significance of Detroit\u2019s early steps of rebirth. The bankruptcy\u2019s early steps of high risk-taking across political hard lines brought to mind a much older poem, written by Isaiah. Prophets cannot be endured without stretching our capacity for hope in hard places. These lines were originally spoken to a destroyed nation tempted to collective despair and challenged by the prophets to believe in rebirth, 2500 years ago. How do they sound in Detroit one week after Judge Rhodes rendered the verdict that Detroit could exit bankruptcy and get about the demanding business of rebirth?<\/p>\n
No longer are you to be named \u201cForsaken,\u201d,
\nnor your land \u201cAbandoned,\u201d
\nbut you shall be called \u201cMy Delight\u201d
\nand your land, \u201cMy Spouse\u201d;
\nfor The Lord takes delight in you
\nand your land will have its wedding.\u201d
\n~Isaiah 61<\/p>\n
I hope you love this season of turning; its grace is to bring us close to the sorrow that lives right next to the sheer beauty of our lives.<\/p>\n
Have a good weekend.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Post: “Spring and Fall: to a young child\u201d Margaret, are you grieving <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Friday November 14 \u2014 “Sorrow\u2019s springs are the same” It\u2019s an aberration to many of my friends; I tell them that I cannot remember a single time in my life when falling snow did not lift my spirits and make … Continue reading
\n<\/strong>Gerard Manley Hopkins, sj 1880<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nOver Goldengrove unleaving?
\nLeaves, like the things of man, you
\nWith your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
\nAh! as the heart grows older
\nIt will come to such sights colder
\nBy and by, nor spare a sigh
\nThough worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
\nAnd yet you will weep and know why.
\nNow no matter, child, the name:
\nSorrow\u2019s springs are the same.
\nNor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
\nWhat heart heard of, ghost guessed:
\nIt is the blight man was born for,
\nIt is Margaret you mourn for.<\/p>\n![\"November](\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2014\/11\/November-trees-east-of-softball--1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>McNichols Campus, just north of the softball field,\u00a0 November 20, 2013<\/p>\n