in case you're wondering

The thief left it behind
The moon in the window.


                                Issa








....

but the silence in the mind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the silence in the mind
is when we live best, within
listening distance of the silence
we call God. This is the deep
calling to deep of the psalm-
writer, the bottomless ocean.
We launch the armada of
our thoughts on, never arriving.

It is a presence, then,
whose margins are our margins;
that calls us out over our
own fathoms. What to do
but draw a little nearer to such ubiquity by remaining still?

 

 

                                           R S  Thomas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

le coeur de riel

I must
Speak of God in whom
I trust.
In him I have room
To hope.
The rope
Threatens my life; but
Thank God, I fear not.



              Louis  'David'  Riel -  autumn 1885






...

against the winter white

               A FABLE                                                     


A raven, while with glossy breast
Her new-laid eggs she fondly press'd,
And, on her wicker-work high mounted,
Her chickens prematurely counted
(A fault philosophers might blame,
If quite exempted from the same),
Enjoy'd at ease the genial day;
'Twas April, as the bumpkins say,
The legislature call'd it May.
But suddenly a wind, as high
As ever swept a winter sky,
Shook the young leaves about her ears,
And fill'd her with a thousand fears,
Lest the rude blast should snap the bough,
And spread her golden hopes below.
But just at eve the blowing weather
And all her fears were hush'd together:
And now, quoth poor unthinking Ralph.
'Tis over, and the brood is safe;
(For ravens, though, as birds of omen,
They teach both conjurors and old women
To tell us what is to befall,
Can’t prophesy themselves at all.)
The morning came, when neighbour Hodge,
Who long had mark'd her airy lodge,
And destined all the treasure there
A gift to his expecting fair,
Climb’d like a squirrel to his dray,
And bore the worthless prize away.

Moral:
'Tis Providence alone secures
In every change both mine and yours:
Safety consists not in escape
From dangers of a frightful shape;
An earthquake may be bid to spare
The man that’s strangled by a hair.
Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oft’nest in what least we dread,
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow.



                    William Cowper






.....

for :: THEOTOKOS ::

Our Lady of Ardboe

By Paul Muldoon

I

Just there, in a corner of the whin-field,
Just where the thistles bloom.
She stood there as in Bethlehem
One night in nineteen fifty-three or four.
The girl leaning over the half-door
Saw the cattle kneel, and herself knelt.

II

I suppose that a farmer’s youngest daughter
Might, as well as the next, unravel
The winding road to Christ’s navel.
Who’s to know what’s knowable?
Milk from the Virgin Mother’s breast,
A feather off the Holy Ghost?
The fair thorn? The holy well?
Our simple wish for there being more to life
Than a job, a car, a house, a wife —
The fixity of running water.
For I like to think, as I step these acres,
That a holy well is no more shallow
Nor plummetless than the pools of Shiloh,
the fairy thorn no less true than the Cross.

III

Mother of our Creator, Mother of our Savior,
Mother most amiable, Mother most admirable.
Virgin most prudent, Virgin most venerable,
Mother inviolate, Mother undefiled.
And I walk waist-deep among purples and golds
With one arm as long as the other.








..

on the 7th day of christmas

From Hymn 8                                                               

Blessed is the Messenger who came bearing
a great peace.  By the mercy of His Father,
He lowered Himself to us.  Our own debts
He did not take up to Him.  He reconciled
[His] Lordship with His chattels.

Refrain: Glory to Your Dawn, divine and human.

Glorious is the Wise One Who allied and joined
Divinity with humanity,
one from the height and the other from the depth.
He mingled the natures like pigments
and an image came into being: the God-man.
O Zealous One who saw Adam
who became dust and the accursed serpent
eating him.  Reality dwelt
in what had lost its flavor.  He made him salt
by which the cursed serpent would be blinded.

 Blessed is the Compassionate One Who saw, next to paradise,
the lance that barred the way
to the Tree of Life.  He came to take up
the body that would be struck so that by the opening in His side
He might break through the way into paradise.


                                 Ephrem the Syrian

a medieval beatitude

Happy, indeed, is she whom it is given to share this sacred banquet,
to cling with all her heart to Him
Whose beauty all the heavenly hosts admire unceasingly,
Whose love inflames our love,
Whose contemplation is our refreshment,
Whose graciousness is our joy,
Whose gentleness fills us to overflowing,
Whose remembrance brings a gentle light,
Whose fragrance will revive the dead,
Whose glorious vision will be the happiness of all the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem.


                                                  St. Clare of Assissi  (  Francis' girlfriend )