AN AWAKENING
O Spring will waken the heart of me
With the rapture of blown violets!
When the green bud quickens on every tree.
The Spring will waken the heart of me.
And dews of honey will rain on the lea.
Tangling the grasses in silver nets.
Yes, Spring will waken the heart of me
With the rapture of blown violets!
-Alice Furlong (1875-1946) Ireland
HOW MUCH?
How much do you love me, a million bushels?
Oh, a lot more than that, Oh, a lot more.
And tomorrow maybe only half a bushel?
Tomorrow maybe not even a half a bushel.
And is this your heart arithmetic?
This is the way the wind measures the weather.
-Carl Sandburg
THE TRAVELING ONION
“It is believed that the onion originally came from India. In Egypt it was an
object of worship — why I haven’t been able to find out. From Egypt the onion entered Greece and on to Italy, thence into all of Europe.” — Better Living Cookbook
When I think how far the onion has traveled
just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise
all small forgotten miracles,
crackly paper peeling on the drainboard,
pearly layers in smooth agreement,
the way the knife enters onion
and onion falls apart on the chopping block,
a history revealed.
And I would never scold the onion
for causing tears.
It is right that tears fall
for something small and forgotten.
How at meal, we sit to eat,
commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma
but never on the translucence of onion,
now limp, now divided,
or its traditionally honorable career:
For the sake of others,
disappear.
-Naomi Shihab Nye
I’m posting this in honor of St. Brigid of Ireland, whose feast day is February 1. I think she would have liked this poem, and would know it to be about her love for Christ.
A BIRTHDAY
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair* and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
-Christina Rossetti
*vair: A fur, probably squirrel, much used in medieval times to line and trim robes.
Gladsome Lights 