Category Archives: poetry

Playing around his knees.

mountains, poetry, quotes, religion, , , , , , , , , ,
Eastern Sierra Nevada

The poem below got me started thinking about mountains and their symbolism. I discovered a very long article on the subject, “The Transfiguration on Mount Tabor: The Symbolism of the Mountain,” which I don’t have time to read deeply, because as I type this draft, I’m in the midst of packing the car for five of us who will be in the mountains together by the time you read my post. I hope the article is not paywalled. It is a treatise on the subject going back millennia, opening with this from René Daumal:

“[The] summit touches the sphere of eternity, and its base branches out in manifold foothills into the world of mortals. It is the path by which humanity can raise itself to the divine and the divine reveals itself to humanity.”

The Transfiguration, Mount Tabor

The author examines traditions throughout the world, beginning in ancient times and concluding with thoughts on what The Mountain means for us Christians who are on a continuum with those 2,000 years ago. Here is one excerpt to help you know if you are interested in the subject from a scholarly perspective :

“In the traditional Hebrew and Christian understanding of the world, places are what they are by their teleology: it is not so much by the material or structural elements that they are recognized, but by their function. Things are what they are because of their purpose and their place in a web of relationships within reality which help create our own map of meanings. Therefore, it is very difficult to understand from a purely geographical (time-space) position where God dwells with regards to this or that mountain. For this reason, many physical mountains have been ‘the mountain of God’. There is only ‘one’, but it’s not confined to one geographical space-time location as we modern people understand it.”

I guess it’s obvious that I myself am interested, and I thought of printing this article to take with me to the high country, but I’m afraid I won’t have time to read it up there, either. My family and I will be too busy playing around our grandfather’s knees.

THE MOUNTAIN

The Mountain sat upon the Plain
In his tremendous Chair—
His observation omnifold,
His inquest, everywhere—

The Seasons played around his knees
Like Children round a sire—
Grandfather of the Days is He
Of Dawn, the Ancestor—

-Emily Dickinson

Sierra Nevada, Tioga Pass Road

Till Tomorrow

nature, poetry, summer, , ,

TILL TOMORROW 

Good night! good night! — the golden day
Has veiled its sunset beam,
And twilight’s star its beauteous ray
Has mirrored in the stream; —
Low voices come from vale and height,
And murmur soft, good night! good night!

Good night! — the bee with folded wings
Sleeps sweet in honeyed flowers,
And far away the night-bird sings
In dreamy forest bowers,
And slowly fades the western light
In deepening shade, — good night! good night!

Good night! good night! — in whispers low
The ling’ring zephyr sighs.
And softly, in its dreamy flow.
The murm’ring brook replies;
And, where yon casement still is bright,
A softer voice has breathed good-night!

Good night! — as steals the cooling dew
Where the young violet lies.
E’en so may slumber steal anew
To weary human eyes.
And softly steep the aching sight
In dewy rest — good night! good night!

-Pamelia Sarah Yule, (1826 – 1897) Canada

Igor Grabar, Summer Evening

 

 

The way the linden tree whispers.

poetry, trees, , ,

I was delighted to discover linden trees, Tilia tomentosa, in Thessaloniki last month, and in bloom, smelling so sweet. This month I came across a poem about them.

Linden Tree in Thessaloniki

LINDEN TREE WHISPERS

You know how the linden tree whispers
In the springtime, at night, by the light of the moon?
My love sleeps, my love sleeps,
Let’s go and wake her up, kiss her eyes.
My love sleeps . . .
You heard because of the way the linden tree whispers.

Do you know how the old grove sleeps?
It sees everything, even through the fog.
Here is the moon, here are the stars, the nightingales.
“I am yours,” overheard the old grove.
And those nightingales . . .
Well! You already know, how the old grove sleeps!

-Pavlo Tychyna (1891-1967) Ukraine

Linden tree, Thessaloniki

The Race

poetry, ,

THE RACE

When I got to the airport I rushed up to the desk,
bought a ticket, ten minutes later
they told me the flight was cancelled, the doctors
had said my father would not live through the night
and the flight was cancelled. A young man
with a dark brown moustache told me
another airline had a nonstop
leaving in seven minutes. See that
elevator over there, well go
down to the first floor, make a right, you’ll
see a yellow bus, get off at the
second Pan Am terminal, I
ran, I who have no sense of direction
raced exactly where he’d told me, a fish
slipping upstream deftly against
the flow of the river. I jumped off that bus with those
bags I had thrown everything into
in five minutes, and ran, the bags
wagged me from side to side as if
to prove I was under the claims of the material,
I ran up to a man with a flower on his breast,
I who always go to the end of the line, I said
Help me. He looked at my ticket, he said
Make a left and then a right, go up the moving stairs and then
run. I lumbered up the moving stairs,
at the top I saw the corridor,
and then I took a deep breath, I said
goodbye to my body, goodbye to comfort,
I used my legs and heart as if I would
gladly use them up for this,
to touch him again in this life. I ran, and the
bags banged against me, wheeled and coursed
in skewed orbits, I have seen pictures of
women running, their belongings tied
in scarves grasped in their fists, I blessed my
long legs he gave me, my strong
heart I abandoned to its own purpose,
I ran to Gate 17 and they were
just lifting the thick white
lozenge of the door to fit it into
the socket of the plane. Like the one who is not
too rich, I turned sideways and
slipped through the needle’s eye, and then
I walked down the aisle toward my father. The jet
was full, and people’s hair was shining, they were
smiling, the interior of the plane was filled with a
mist of gold endorphin light,
I wept as people weep when they enter heaven,
in massive relief. We lifted up
gently from one tip of the continent
and did not stop until we set down lightly on the
other edge, I walked into his room
and watched his chest rise slowly
and sink again, all night
I watched him breathe.

-Sharon Olds, from The Father

Oleg Holosiy, Airplane on the Runway